


Hope, turned inside out

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Death, Emotional Manipulation, Non-Graphic Violence, Physical Abuse, Reincarnation, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Threat of Sexual Violence, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-01-24 13:41:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 44,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21339166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: People have all kinds of questions when the King and his Prime Minister die on the same unremarkable spring day. Within hours, it becomes clear that one question is more important than the rest:WhereisSansa Stark?Rewrite of the work previously posted asHair the Colour of Espresso
Relationships: Sansa Stark/Willas Tyrell
Comments: 140
Kudos: 265





	1. Day One

Dad always starts his gentle pleas for her to break things off with Joff with _ All I’m saying, sweetheart. _

He’s got half a dozen speeches, all of them honed to perfection over the years of repetition, but every single one of them starts the same. He waits until it’s just the two of them, and he softens her up with dinner, or a very hearty lunch, and he clears his throat before he starts.

He starts this one as they’re leaving Heddles, and Sansa’s so stuffed with thick mushroom soup and crusty sourdough bread that she’s waddling a little. 

“All I’m saying, sweetheart,” Dad says, having cleared his throat, “is that we’re behind you. No matter what, your mother and I are with you - you can always move up home, if that would work. I know Vayon and Marya have been begging Jeyne to think about it for ages.”

“I know, Dad,” Sansa assures him, because she does. She could dump Joff right now, by text, and Dad and Mum and the others would stand right by her. So would Winterfell, and most of the North. They’d crowd in around her and hide her in the fold, and she’d be free as a bird, provided she never came further south than the Neck ever again. She knows the North. She knows her family, and she knows Mum and Dad would rather die than let anything bad happen to her or Arya or the boys.

It’s the rest of the country that worries her. It’s _ Joff _ that worries her.

“I wish to the gods we’d never sent you to Duskendale,” he sighs, nudging his temple to hers and tugging her hand a little tighter into his elbow. “It had seemed like such a good idea, and your mother loved it so much-”

“Dad,” Sansa says, drawing him to a halt. “This isn’t your fault. This is just… It just _ is. _It’ll be fine.”

“Sweetheart-”

Dad’s head is whole, and then it isn’t.

Sansa’s top is white, and then it’s red.

* * *

When Sansa was nineteen, she got engaged.

She hadn’t really meant to do it. In fact, she _ really _ hadn’t meant to do it. Joff was twenty-one then, smart and beautiful and charming, and he spoiled her rotten when he wasn’t being terrible. They’d been going out since she was fifteen and he was seventeen. His father was king and hers was soon-to-be prime minister, their families had gone to the same schools, their grandfathers had worked together, their grandmothers had been on all the same committees and fundraising boards - they were an obvious match. He was so nice in front of everyone else that the little cruelties didn’t matter, really, until they did.

All the while, the blush-pink birthmark on the inside of Sansa’s wrist remained an indeterminate little smudge, and she never paid it any mind. She knew what it was, but since it hadn’t reacted to Joff she supposed that it didn’t really matter. She was more worried about the bruises and the marks, the cigarette burns on her thighs and the other, harder to heal scars on her back. 

No chance of a backless wedding dress, then.

* * *

“Get her in,_ get her in!” _

Is that Jory? She doesn’t know. She can’t hear much over the ringing in her ears and whoever’s screaming.

She’s screaming. 

Dad is on the ground, missing half his head, and she’s screaming.

Jory’s next.

“Get her _ in!” _ Hallis roars, throwing his arm around Sansa’s waist and heaving her off her feet. She’s vaguely aware of where they’re going, inasmuch as it’s _ away from Dad, _and she can’t seem to shut up. Joff’s going to be so angry with her about that, later. There’s going to be viral footage of this all over the internet, and he’ll be furious that she’s not presenting herself better.

Hallis slumps and they hit the ground, and it’s Donnis who gets her back on her feet. She’s stopped screaming, started crying instead, and they’re almost to the car when a bullet goes through Donnis’ throat and into the windscreen.

That starts her screaming again.

* * *

The trouble with Joff was… Well. Where to start.

The real trouble with Joff - the root of the problem - was that no one had ever said no to him. Sansa knew she was as much to blame as his parents, really, because she’d been so overawed by Joff, Joffrey Baratheon_,_ _Prince of Dragonstone, _wanting to take her to the cinema when she was fifteen and not quite grown into her legs yet with braces and spots and a dodgy fringe, that she’d gone along with whatever he’d wanted. 

She’d let him bully her into shorter skirts and blonder highlights, because that was what the older girls he talked about wore and did. She chose to go to college further from home because it was closer to him, even though that meant she couldn’t do Design and a language together, like she’d always wanted. 

And then, when she was nineteen, she agreed to marry him. She still didn’t know why.

* * *

“Don’t worry, Sansa,” Petyr says, putting his suit jacket over her head and guiding her down into the well behind the driver’s seat of his big flashy jeep as his escort drives them away from the- from that. “We’ll get you safe away, sweetheart.”

She doesn’t want to go back to her and Jeyne’s apartment with Dad’s blood and Jory’s blood and probably their brains all over her white top.

Where did Petyr even come from? Ormund Square was quiet, so much so that she and Dad had remarked on it when they came out of Heddles, and she would have noticed Petyr’s jeep. 

She dares to peek out the rear window as they exit the square, and she wishes she hadn’t. The dark grey suits of Dad’s security team look very stark against the pale cobbles.

  
  


* * *

She was just glad she’d never moved in with him. Instead, she had a little two-bed apartment with Jeyne, twenty minutes walk from Jon’s and five minutes from the nearest bus stop. If Joff ever wanted to come over and she needed an excuse, she could say she was going to Jon’s for dinner, and he’d meet her halfway in case Joff came to check. Jon was warier of Joff than anyone, probably because of the Coup.

Arya also liked to stay over. She never said that it was to stop Joff from doing the same, but Sansa wasn’t as stupid as she played for Joff and his friends. Sometimes she brought Rickon and the Wii, and they played Wii Sports for hours. That meant she could throw a dozen pictures of Rickon and Arya fighting on her and Jeyne’s bright blue rug up on her Snapchat story as proof that she really couldn’t have Joff over, look, her brother and sister were visiting.

And somehow, she hadn’t broken it off with him.

* * *

Sansa’s engagement ring had to be resized to fit over her knuckle after Joff slammed her hand in the car door.

It’s no great loss to leave it in the big envelope Petyr gives her for her clothes, along with the lion’s head necklace and the heavy golden watch. It looks like a police evidence bag, and she throws it out the door before stepping into the shower to wash Dad off her skin.

It’s been just under half an hour. She’s scrubbing at her neck with a facecloth and heavily-perfumed shower gel when she realises she probably should have waited to see the police. They probably would have wanted photos or- or something. She remembers, sort of, what happened when Joff’s uncle lost his hand, and she remembers Cersei complaining that Colonel Lannister had been questioned even while he was being wheeled down to surgery. Captain Tarth was one of Mum’s scholarship girls at Duskendale, and so Sansa remembers a little better that Brienne had had to sit in clothes crusted with Jaime Lannister’s blood for three hours of questioning before she’d been allowed to shower.

She’s tried calling Mum but can’t get through, and her phone is dead now and Petyr won’t give her his - says his is being traced, and if the rest of the family have any sense, they’ll be hiding now, too, so they’ve probably dumped their phones.

As he says it, that makes sense. Petyr has been an advisor to cabinet for as long as Sansa can remember, and even if no one particularly likes him, Sansa can trust him. Mum trusts him, so Sansa can trust him. She has to trust him, because all of Dad’s protective detail are lying dead on the ground in Ormund Square and she has no one else on hand who knows how to keep her away from a bullet.

She didn’t try to call Joff. Part of her is hoping that this was some sort of concerted effort to off the royals, and Joff got caught up in it. Everything would be better if Joff was dead. She knows that this isn’t about the royal family, though - Dad wouldn’t have been their first target if it was - which means Joff is still out there, probably cheating on her right this minute. Good. That means he won’t be looking for her.

She sits on the floor of the shower until the water runs cold, rubbing her left thumb over the pink birthmark on the inside of her right wrist. It’s just a little blob of discolouration, but this has always been the quickest way for her to calm herself down short of sleeping tablets.

Someone’s left clothes in the bathroom for her. Funny thing is, she’s certain she locked the door.

  
  


* * *

When Sansa was nineteen, she agreed to marry Joff.

No, not quite.

When Sansa was nineteen, she tried to dump Joffrey. Arya had found the burn marks on her thighs, and the bruises from his latest beating had been shiny and dark on her back and around her throat. She’d spent a night in hospital to make sure she wasn’t concussed, and then she’d agreed - she’d _ promised _ \- that she’d break up with Joff.

Except she’d tried to do it at dinner, and as if he’d been expecting it, he got down on one knee and produced an absolute _ whopper _of a diamond, right there in the middle of the restaurant. How could she say no to the Prince of Dragonstone? How could she refuse such a magnificent engagement ring, such wonderful prospects, such a fine, charming, upstanding young man?

She couldn’t. And so she said yes, and Joff invited himself back to her place, and he took his belt to her back for daring to make an escape attempt.

The one thing she’d always comforted herself with was that he’d never raped her. He’d never forced so much as a kiss on her, always accepting her refusals with an uncharacteristic patience that made her worry about what went on behind castle walls. Instead, he just embarked on an ever more public string of affairs, starting with prostitutes and culminating, just three weeks ago, in an attempt to seduce Margaery Tyrell at her Fall/Winter show.

Margaery had been Sansa’s friend since they were on the showjumping team together in college, and she wasn’t particularly interested in men anyways, but it had been how _ open _ Joff was about it that had really stung. They’d been at Marg’s show together, mostly for Sansa’s sake and a little because having a royal on the front row would be good for publicity. They’d been chatting with Loras and Renly - Marg’s brother, Joff’s uncle, and damn good company - when he slipped away.

The first Sansa knew of it was Marg throwing her champagne in Joff’s face.

* * *

The clothes Petyr left in the bathroom fit well enough to make Sansa uncomfortable - she’s heard the rumours about his money, listened to the scandal about all those suspicious _ hostels _of his on Satin Street, where all the brothels moved once Silk Street really established itself as a heart of the theatre district. Even if he was a pimp, why did he know her bra size? Not even Margaery could guess someone’s bra size on sight. And why had Petyr had clothes to fit her on hand?

Is she _ in _ a brothel? She’s never even been in a strip club before, never mind the sort of establishment Petyr’s rumoured to operate, and her skin is already crawling. She knows - from tabloids, from overhearing Mum and Dad talk about it, from Joff’s occasional outbursts - that it was while _ hunting _ in a brothel that the King had his last heart attack. She wants out of here, away from Petyr. She wants to go home.

She wants Dad, but that’s beyond her now.

She throws up. Then she does it a second time for good measure, because she hasn’t a clue what else to do.

* * *

Joff hated Sansa’s family. That was okay though, because she didn’t like much of his, either. 

He’d hit the roof when Mum and Dad weren’t pleased about the engagement. He’d been even angrier when Sansa agreed with their parents - hers and his alike, which had surprised her at first - that a long engagement was a good idea, at least until she’d finished her masters, which she’d then wheedled out into a delay until her three-year doctorate was done. They’d been aiming for September next, although they hadn’t made any plans yet.

His mother hadn’t _ wanted _them to make any plans. His mother disliked Sansa even more than Sansa disliked her, for some reason. Joff had known that, and found it hilarious, and Sansa sometimes wondered if he only kept on with her to get under his mother’s skin.

Maybe, if Joff thought she was dead, as well as Dad, he’d move on. 

She could be free.

* * *

The blouse Petyr left for her has a patterned silk front - an ugly golden bronze, with green and orange tropical flowers splashed all over it - but the back is sheer, and Sansa doesn’t know whether she feels more conscious of her scars or the backband of her bra.

“There she is,” Petyr says, smiling at her as though nothing about this is any different than when last he had dinner at Winterfell. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s get you a drink.”

It’s definitely a brothel. A high end one, since all of the girls sitting around this lounge are fully and elegantly dressed, and it only smells a little of sex, but a brothel nonetheless.

Someone snaps Sansa’s bra. She nearly jumps out of her skin, because the sound echoes in her still-ringing ears like a gunshot, and the men sitting around Petyr all laugh.

“Doesn’t really need that, does she?” the ugly little ginger says, sidling around to settle beside Petyr’s escort from earlier. Broom? Brown? No, _ Brune, _that’s the big man’s name. “Wouldn’t mind seeing her dance, if she got rid of it.”

“Mind your tongue, Shadric,” Petyr cautions, but he’s smiling too. “This isn’t one of the girls, you know.”

“You’ll need to hide the hair,” another of them says - an old man, grizzled and overgrown his suit. “That’ll catch eyes even without people looking.”

“Shame,” Petyr says, and Sansa folds her arms over her chest because of the way they’re all looking at her. “I do like the hair.”

Sansa’s starting to wonder if she might not be better off back with Joff.

* * *

Willas is on a flight to King’s Landing within four hours of hearing that Ned Stark has been killed, but as always, that’s too late.

Marg is waiting for him at the airport, all pale and anxious, and she tucks his good crutches under his arms before throwing his shitty travel sticks over her shoulder.

“Well,” she says, her voice thick and her jaw tight. “Looks like we missed the boat on this one.”

She pulls his bag along behind her, and he follows her out to the car - not her own car, or one of the old man’s. Incognito. 

“Fred’s?” he guesses, because he can’t imagine anyone but a Manderly choosing teal leather for the upholstery. Wynafryd’s a new girlfriend, but Loras says there’s a small ocean thriving on Marg’s left shoulder now, so who knows? Maybe she’s a permanent fixture.

“Who else is going to lend _ me _ their car?” Marg points out, which is fair. She’s probably the worst driver in the whole country, and that’s including Granny, who has a record twenty-three crashes under her belt. “I thought you’d prefer it this way. No one cares about the Manderlys this far south.”

They get out of the airport. Willas assumes they’re going to Marg’s apartment in the incredibly bougie Riverside, formerly known as Flea Bottom, but they could just as easily be going to his equally overpriced townhouse on the million mile, just below the university.

At least his house is overpriced because he’s had it refitted to accommodate his wheelchair, and because real estate on any of the three hills has _ always _been overpriced. Marg’s paying ten times over the odds for a view out over the Blackwater Rush, and it’s no Oldtown Harbour.

“How is she?” he asks, because even when he fucks up, Marg always manages to do some good - she always manages to get near Sansa to do some damage control during the very worst of things. “Have you spoken to her yet?”

“No one has,” Marg says, and Willas can feel his blood pressure rising. “She was with her father when he- when it happened, and no one has heard from her since. Alla’s been calling me every twenty minutes on Arya’s behalf. Nothing.”

“Then she’s with Baelish.”

“Has to be.”

High blood pressure and a sick stomach. Lucky there are plenty of laybys on the old airport road, and Marg doesn’t mind pulling in for ten minutes so Willas can throw up.

“Reincarnating,” Marg agrees. “Absolute pile of shit.”

* * *

Willas hasn’t actually met Sansa, this time around.

That was partly on purpose - it’s weird, being around her when she’s barely eighteen and he’s twenty-eight, nearly twenty-nine, and something stupid in his hindbrain is telling him to propose to her. That’s not a good feeling, not for either of them, so he’s stayed away as best he can.

And now it might be too late.

“If you have a panic attack I’m going to throw you off the balcony,” Marg shouts in from her very shiny kitchen. Willas is working on it, counting his prayer beads in quickly repeating sevens, but getting to Marg’s apartment without losing his mind in sight of a traffic camera or paparazzo had taken all the self control he had to spare.

Onetwothreefourfivesixsevenonetwothreefourfivesixseven.

“Here,” Marg says, handing him a fizzing glass of water. “It’s got one of those things Mal uses when she has a vision in it - try it. Might calm you down.”

He chokes it down between uneven breaths, and sure enough, the tunnel vision starts to widen out within ten minutes.

Still. Onetwo three four five six and seven.

“We’ll find her,” Marg says. “I promise. We’ll find her.”

* * *

Sansa’s sister knocks on Marg’s door an hour after Willas manages to calm the fuck down. Sansa has been missing for seven hours - sacred seven. It’s an omen, but he doesn’t know what kind.

“We know,” Arya Stark says. “Me and Bran, anyway. Now tell me what _ you _ know.”

“What do you know?” Marg asks, but she still steps back to let Arya Stark and little cousin Alla through the door. That’s a fairly new arrangement, and Willas has to wonder what it’s like to be born with a choice in who you love. He can’t imagine loving anyone but Sansa, not for lack of trying, but it might be interesting to have the option.

“Do you think we’re involved, somehow?” Marg asks, pushing Alla down onto the couch beside Willas. Alla, sweet, silly Alla, immediately sets to patting his hand, so he obviously looks even worse than he feels.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Arya says, sitting down on the edge of Marg’s very fashionable, very ugly coffee table. “We know about all the history - and we want to know if you’ve done anything about Baelish yet.”

“I was very sorry to hear about your father’s death,” Willas says, wondering if he’ll ever have a chance to know his father-in-law. He hasn’t so far. “I got on the first flight I could find from Braavos, so in the seven hours since Sansa’s disappearance, I haven’t been able to do much but make a few phone calls.”

“You’re _ Hightowers!” _ Arya snaps. “I know your mad aunt is a Seer, why didn’t you _ do _anything? Why weren’t you on time?” 

“Why didn’t you?” Marg asks, cold as the grave. “Your brother is a Seer too, Miss Arya Stark. Why weren’t _ you _ on time?”

“Because it’s their father’s death that wakes them up, Marg,” Willas says, wishing - not for the first time - that he’d inherited Malora’s Sight along with her almost-deaf left ear. “Mal’s visions aren’t straightforward. She tends to See in portents, mostly, and we can’t always interpret them ahead of time. I’m sorry, Arya. I truly am.”

She takes a deep breath, pressing her face into her hands, and when she lifts her head the shocking dark silver of her eyes is bright with tears.

“Sansa has to be brought home as soon as possible,” she says. “Not for you, for us - Bran and I want her home for Dad’s funeral. She’s never had the chance before.”

“So seven days,” Alla says. “Well, six, discounting today.”

“I want to find her in less than that, if possible,” Marg says, rubbing her hands up and down her skinny arms. “The stories I’ve heard about Baelish this time around…”

Willas’ prayer beads are going to be worn away at this rate.

* * *

When Willas was sixteen, Awake and stupid, he tempted fate. 

He was going out with Tyene Martell at the time, because he was young and an idiot, and the thoughts of waiting at least another fifteen years for Sansa was torture to his hormones. Ty was great, smart and pretty and just as interested in art history as him - although she skewed toward religious art, because of her mother. 

Tyene was also Oberyn’s daughter, and Willas, being Awake, really ought to have known better.

He’d been visiting Sunspear - chaperoned, since he was officially there doing work experience with Baelor, and was absolutely not spending two weeks with his girlfriend - when Ty introduced him to her father, and his knee had started to hurt from the moment he and Oberyn shook hands.

But that was fine. He was a teenager braver than he was smart, and so he took up Oberyn’s challenge of a race across the dunes outside the city. On horseback.

Willas had tried sandracing before - things weren’t as they’d always been, and they’d holidayed in Dorne when he was a child - but he wasn’t used to his horse, and he’d been thrown, and his knee and ankle were ruined.

A child, thinking he could avoid his destiny.

He hopes to any of the many gods he’s encountered in his travels that Sansa’s fate is more malleable.


	2. Day Two

Petyr’s apartment is a lofty penthouse looking down over Silk Street - which Sansa always found strange, because he’s never liked the theatre. Mum used tease him over it, over how bad he was at music and how wooden he was on stage when they were kids, and it’s always been one of the few things he gets really snotty with her over.

Sansa’s been to dinner in Petyr’s plenty of times - he’s Mum’s foster brother, after all, a member of the family, even if he and Dad didn’t work so closely on council. She’s always loved the big windows that look down onto the Harper’s Rest opposite, and the way the music from the Victoria next door sometimes drifted up onto the roof terrace.

This is not Petyr’s apartment.

Some part of Sansa had expected Petyr to put her on a train to Winterfell, maybe with a small protective detail. That’s what he _ should _ have done - she’s engaged to the crown prince, she was witness to her father’s assassination just yesterday morning, she’s _ important, _kind of.

No such luck. She’s been called stupid before, hundreds of times, but it’s been a while since she’s actually _ felt _it.

“Everyone will be looking for you,” he says, “and they’ll expect you to run home - let me keep you safe, sweetheart.”

He brushes her hair back from her face before ushering her into the shitty bathroom in the stinky little one-bed apartment off Satin Street - still _ near _ his brothel, but at least not _ in _the brothel - with a box of hair dye. He lets his hand linger too long, thumb sweeping over her cheek and fingers curling around her ear, and the look he gives her when he steps away is nothing she ever wants to see again.

The King looks at Arya the same way - that’s part of why he and Dad had stopped talking.

* * *

Ty brings Aster with her, when she comes to knock on his door at half past seven in the morning. They obviously drove through the night, because Aster’s hazel-green eyes, just like his, are falling out of her head, but she’s still struggling valiantly up the path to his front door with their two bags over her shoulders all the same.

It’s the better part of nine hours up from Sunspear, of course. What would he do without Tyene?

“The Vipers are at your disposal, Will,” Ty says, kissing his cheek and balancing with her left hand to his chest. The bright purple-white of the star spilling down from her shoulder is startling against her dark skin, every single time, and Willas half wishes Lyria had come too - he’d like as many of his friends nearby now as possible. “Trys is already digging, and we’ve got Neddie asking around his contacts.”

Ty’s little cousin Trystane and Lyria’s little nephew Edric are the best private investigators in the country - Willas still isn’t sure how they’ve managed that, and at such an obscenely young age, too - so it really does comfort him to know they’re looking for Sansa.

It doesn’t comfort him quite as much as Aster pushing past Ty and throwing her arms around him. Az is like him, like Marg and Loras - she was born Awake, and for all Willas wishes he could spare her, it’s not always a bad thing. He doesn’t understand how it works, since in those faraway first memories Aster doesn’t _ exist, _but she knows, and that does make life a little easier.

“Hello, poppet,” Willas says, kissing her bright blonde hair - just like Ty’s - until she lifts her head so he can sign for her. _ “Thank you for coming, sweetheart.” _

_ “Always.” _

Az is seventeen, tall and awkwardly shaped just like Willas was at that age, and she’s partially deaf in both ears - and rubbish about wearing her hearing aids, of course. Willas is the same about his, and however much she might _ look _like Ty, she’s always been much more like him. Her hearing is worse than his, and deteriorating faster, but it’s never seemed to trouble her overmuch so they’ve taken her lead and never pushed her to pursue surgery - she can hear well enough with her hearing aids to attend a Hearing school, and she’s promised to tell them both if that changes. They trust her, and she’s never betrayed that trust.

Az chatters away while he shuffles them in the door, into the front sitting room, skinny hands moving so quickly he has to really watch to keep up - even with her hearing aids in, she signs as often as she speaks when she’s at home. He regrets that he doesn’t see her more, but Ty doesn’t move around for work the way he does, and Az loves her school. It wouldn’t be fair to force her to move back and forth on an irregular schedule just because Willas missed her, so he’s made do with holidays on the promise that she’ll live with him for at least her first year of college, when she moves up to King’s Landing in the summer.

“Hey,_ ” _ Ty says to her. “Maybe go throw our bags upstairs?”

Willas’ house has three floors, proper, and he mostly lives in the basement below them - he has a kitchen, a sitting room, a study, and an ensuite bedroom, and he doesn’t need much else - but the rest of the house is finished just as well as his little apartment. Az’s room is the attic, because of course it is, and Ty usually takes the big guest room on the second floor, looking out over the million mile.

“The blue room is occupied,” he tells Ty. “Your room very nearly was, but I valiantly defended your territory.”

“Sansa’s sister?”

“Mm. She’s seeing our Alla, you know.”

“I heard - she was at college with Trys and Neddie. They both were.”

Ty presses her hand over his heart, warm and steady.

“We’ll find her, Will,” Ty promises. “You helped me and Lyria - let us repay the favour.”

* * *

** _KING, PM DEAD_ **

“Seven save us,” Willas says, unfolding the shitty redtop Rodge has thrown down on the table. “The King as well?”

“The King as well,” Rodge confirms. “Word came in late last night - word is it was another heart attack, but until the autopsy is done we can’t be sure. The Lannisters have all but barricaded the palace, anyway. No one in, and hardly anyone out.”

Rodge and Willas had spent three months beating the shit out of one another after Rodge started at Summerhall, and then Rodge had given himself away as being Awake during a six-hour Saturday detention. Willas can’t even remember what it was he said, but it had surprised them both so much that they forgot to fight, and they’ve been tight ever since.

“Jon Arryn’s not even cold,” Willas says, waving Rodge toward the still-hot teapot. “But now Sansa’s father and the King - who’s next?”

“Renly,” Rodge says. “But we’ve got him more or less on lock, and he’s not going to challenge his brother for the throne now.”

“And so the might of Highgarden throws in behind Stannis Baratheon,” Willas says, shaking his head. “You haven’t heard-”

“I’ll text you as soon as I do,” Rodge promises, stirring milk into his tea with an even more solemn face than usual. Their pasts weigh heavier on Rodge than they seem to weigh on anyone else, and he grows more and more serious as time goes on. 

At least this time he lived past twenty. That’s rare. This might be the first time he’s lived past thirty.

“We’ve got people searching Baelish’s places,” Will says. “Well, the high-end ones, to start with - none of my uncles are going to blend in in his shittier establishments.”

“My boys are already on the hunt. Theon was… Thrilled to have a chance to do something useful that doesn’t involve bookwork.”

Rodge’s little brother is like Sansa, in that he never _ quite _ manages to escape his worst fate entirely. At least this time they got him out with all of his fingers, and almost all of his skin.

* * *

Sansa looks like Aunty Lya with her hair dark.

Well, sort of. She’s always favoured Mum’s side, but she’s got Dad’s long jaw, and with her hair almost-black and hanging wet and straight around her face, she looks a good deal more Stark than usual. Either the hair dye or the terror is dulling her eyes, and without any concealer or anything she looks… grotty. 

Probably won’t be enough to put off Petyr’s lingering glances or lingering hands, but it might stall him a little.

She pulls on the clothes he left for her - not taken from a prostitute’s locker this time, thankfully. A thick dark brown jumper, nondescript jeans, sturdy boots that are going to give her horrific blisters until they’re broken in. Dressed, she somehow looks even more like Aunty Lya, despite the way her hair is curling as it dries, despite how tall she is.

“Sweetheart? Ready to come out and say hello?”

Sansa hesitates. Hello to _ who? _

* * *

_ “We’re going to find her, Dad,” _Aster assures him instead of doing her homework - Ty agreed that she could come along, but no power under the heavens will allow her to escape her studying. Her exams are only two months away, and Willas already feels guilty enough that she’s having to deal with him being such a useless mess without missing time from her studies.

_ “I know, love,” _ he says, because he’s sitting at the kitchen table with Az for want of anything more useful to do. Ty’s gone out to talk to some _ source _ of Trys and Neddie’s, Arya and Alla are gone to do some “sniffing about,” and Rodge is gone to round up some moral support - which means Renly and Edmure, Seven save him. _ “I just hope it’s soon.” _

Aster pats his hand, in a moment of such stupendous mortification that he can’t even react, and then goes back to her studying. Being comforted by his teenage daughter is surely a new low.

The redtops are losing their minds over the deaths. The King’s is the less scandalous of the two, and so the Star, the Sun, the Mirror, _ and _the Express have run with long-lens photos of Sansa’s father with half his head splattered across the cobbles, surrounded by the bodies of his six-man security team. The cobbles in Ormund Square are pale yellow-white, the same sandstone-colour that everything funded by the Baratheons over the years seems to be, and it shows up the gore and the slate-grey Stark suits in devastatingly high contrast.

The Times, meanwhile, is running in a more tasteful direction - the last official portrait of the King covers most of the upper half of the front page, and an official portrait of Ned Stark covers the lower right quarter. 

Willas can’t bring himself to read the _ Continued on page 2 _ article beside Sansa’s father’s photograph, because he knows it will mention the appeal for information regarding the whereabouts of Prime Minister Stark’s elder daughter, last seen on the CCTV cameras in Ormund Square immediately after her father’s death. 

Of course the CCTV cut out the moment Sansa’s father was shot, and kicked back in to reveal the dead Northmen. Baelish has all kinds of nasty friends, and no doubt at least some of them are in the Met. The police have always been corrupt, and there’s nothing that allows Littlefinger to flourish like corruption.

Az’s hand covers his, and Willas startles - he hadn’t noticed his fingers drumming against the tabletop, but he must have been going mad for Az to notice.

_ “Sorry.” _

She shrugs and releases him, and he’s embarrassed all over again. 

The door rattles, and for a stupid moment Willas almost thinks it’s going to be Sansa - he stands up without his crutches, he’s so sure, and poor Aster has to catch him before he hits the deck.

“Oh, get up, you great idiot,” Edmure says, face creased with worry that has nothing to do with Willas. _ “Hey, kiddo,” _he says to Az, once they’ve settled Willas back into his chair and everyone’s hands are free. 

_ “Hey, Ed,” _ Az says cheerfully, gathering her books and things into her bag with a smile. _ “I’m using your study, Dad, shout if you need me.” _

He sticks his tongue out at her in response, and she kisses his cheek on her way past. Edmure pointedly doesn’t laugh, and so Willas doesn’t mention the glitter all over the arse of Edmure’s jeans. Bethy’s been at the card-making again, obviously.

“No word?”

“Not a thing,” Edmure says, sitting down with a thud once he has the kettle on. “Cat’s beside herself, of course, but the kids are insisting that we can’t wake her.”

“What sets her off?”

“Depends. Last time it was Bran breaking his back, time before that it was hearing Sansa was-” 

Edmure stops and clears his throat. The _ time before that, _Willas thinks, gorge rising, is unbearable to consider, because the time before last he was too late and it cost Sansa her life.

“It’s always to do with the kids, though.”

Willas can’t imagine what that must be like - not only being told there’s something wrong with Aster, but to have all his pasts crashing down on him at once? That’s the stuff of true nightmares. He’s never so glad to have been born Awake as when he realises just how bloody traumatic waking up is for most people.

“Before you start spiralling,” Edmure says, clapping a hand sharply on Willas’ shoulder, “I’m going to need you to take out your prayer beads, and I’m going to make you _ chamomile _ tea, since, knowing you, you’ve not slept since word got to you about Ned - have you done any of your physio? No? And you after _ flying?!” _

“It was only a short flight,” Willas grumbles, peeved that Edmure knows him well enough to know both that his knee is in agony and that his prayer beads will help. “Ed, come on, there has to be something more useful I can do than lie on my bed with a fucking resistance band-”

“You’ll be no use to anyone if you’re in bed with the pain,” Edmure says, putting a cup of yes, chamomile tea down in front of Willas. “So drink that, sleep for a couple of hours, and do your exercises - I’ll be here to keep an eye on Az and coordinate. Sansa won’t thank you for running yourself into the ground once she’s Awake, Will, and you know it.”

* * *

Petyr’s friends - Shadric with the ugly red hair, Kettleblack-no-first-name in the ill-fitting suit, Brune with his unhappy eyes - are playing cards, and for some reason, none of them are calling Petyr on how he’s cheating them.

It’s just after lunchtime. There’s no telly in this shithole flat, Sansa’s phone never made its way back to her, and no one brought a newspaper when they visited. Sansa’s fairly sure Petyr should be up on the High Hill, advising council - that’s his _ job _ \- but he seems perfectly at ease here, with these strange men.

“My father’ll be here soon, of course,” and how has Randa Royce not recognised her? Everyone always said Randa was too selfish to see past the end of her own nose, but Sansa can’t understand it. Even with her hair changed, she still looks like herself, and thanks to Joff she’s one of the most photographed women in the country. 

Randa Royce is one of the most accomplished hangers-on in the country. Her father’s a hereditary knight with no real title, and while they’re wealthy, it just isn’t the same. Dad is-

Sansa’s father _ was _Duke of Norham. The oldest title in the country, which has always just _ delighted _ the Lannisters. Being the eldest daughter of a duke and thereby _ Lady _ Sansa means a lot more than just _ the Honourable Miss Myranda _. The likes of Randa usually do everything they could do get into the kind of social circles Sansa was automatically made part of even before she and Joff got engaged, and they approached it like a military operation. Social climbers know everything about everyone. It’s their best weapon. So why hasn’t Randa made Sansa?

Unless Randa has recognised her. Unless Randa is going to return Sansa to Joff in return for a free pass into the innermost circle. Oh, _ gods. _

“Your father is always just a moment away,” says Mya Stone, who is _ clearly _ a Baratheon. There’s somewhere just shy of two dozen absolutely-not-a-Baratheons dotted around the country, because the King wouldn’t know a condom if it jumped up and bit him, and they’ve always just been one more thing for Joff to hate about his father. Most of them are unrecognised, except Edric Florent-Baratheon, who’s acknowledged but never, _ ever _ legitimised. Tywin Lannister threatened war if the King went that far, and Joff always said it was the one clever thing his father ever did.

_ If he is his father. _

Where had that come from? Why would she doubt- what was she even doubting? That Joff was his father’s son? How could she doubt something like that, when Joff had his father’s disregard for fidelity, his hatred of women as anything but toys, his temper and his fury, and-

And absolutely nothing of him, physically. Sansa’s always favoured Mum, they all have except Arya, but she has Dad’s jaw and Robb has Brandon’s smile and Bran has Benjen’s skinny build and Rickon has Lya’s silvery eyes. Oh, that would be _ delicious, _if it could be true, that Joff was the by-blow of some of Cersei’s brownnosing cronies-

But why is she even thinking that? What put that into her head? Even if it were true, would the same be true for Tommy and Cella? It really would come to war if something like that came out, and then all those very-much-not-the-King’s-bastards would suddenly become incredibly important. But _ why _ is she thinking this?

And- and what’s making her want to text Robin and ask if Randa Royce has ever tried to get her leg over with Harry Hardyng? Who’s Harry Hardyng?

She rubs her thumb over the birthmark on the inside of her wrist, pinker and rounder than it’s ever been, and ignores the way Petyr’s biting his lip every time he looks at her. 

She really, really wants to go home.

* * *

“Little bird,” Shadric growls, leaning against the shitty laminate counter beside her when she goes to make tea. “Has he touched you yet?”

She jerks, spilling the kettle all over her hands - lucky she hasn’t boiled it yet.

“I- I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Little bird,” he says. “Little songbird. Not a mockingbird at all, underneath.”

Sansa says nothing. Her hands are shaking.

“You have friends, you know,” he says. “There’s a… Spiderweb spread all over all of this.”

He watches her face carefully, seeking something specific, and seems perturbed when he doesn’t find it.

“Ah, well,” he says. “There are other ways.”

A spiderweb? Why would the Mad Mouse tell her of a _ spiderweb? _ Who’s the Mad Mouse?

Randa and Mya are bickering about something, and Sansa concentrates so hard on keeping her hands steady while she refills the kettle that she forgets to answer to _ Alayne. _ That brings on a round of teasing from Randa, a curious, twisty sort of look from Mya, and a warning glance from Petyr.

_ Has he touched you yet? _

Shadric is the one who snapped her bra just yesterday, who said all those- those _ things _ about seeing her dance. But he’s the only one who sees this all as being wrong, or at least, he’s the only one who said anything about it.

_ Has he touched you yet? _ Not quite, but Sansa doesn’t think it’ll be long. 

“Alayne!” Randa calls. “Alayne! Mya and me are going for a coffee - coming?”

She says yes before Petyr can object - won’t it look strange if she says no? And it isn’t as though she has money to get away, or as if she trusts either of these two strangers to help.

Petyr gives her a twenty pound note, and with Shadric and Lothor and Mya and Randa all looking as he passes it to her, Sansa can’t help but wonder just what he’s paying for.

_ Has he touched you yet? _No. Not yet.

* * *

“We know she’s in this area,” Trys says, swinging idly on a grubby plastic-topped stool with a half-forgotten milkshake in hand. “It’s just a question of where _ specifically.” _

“Don’t fall,” Ned says, not looking up from his phone but catching Trys when he loses his balance all the same. “And look, we’ve just got to narrow down which aliases are most likely for this gambit - if we do that, we limit the number of places we need to check.”

“My money’s still on Eagle’s Rest,” Trys says, leaning over the table just enough to touch the screen of his tablet, so he can check the process of whatever search is running. “But yeah, if we can cut down his false names, that’ll help.”

“How many false names can one man have?” Robin asks, dreading the answer - he’s clingfilmed from his wrist all the way to his shoulder, so he’s sweating bullets even without all this anxiety over Sansa. If he’d known this was all about to go down, he would never have gotten his arm tattooed two days ago. “Gods be good, Ned-”

“Baelish has enough names to field an army,” Ned says, lifting his phone when it dings. “Well, there’s another two doors we don’t have to knock on.”

Robin waits patiently, well used to Ned and Trys’ distracted methods. He’s been their chief financier since he turned sixteen and Dad allowed him access to part of his trust, and their friend across a dozen lifetimes. He trusts them, even if they drive him batty on a regular basis.

“How many doors are left, then?” Robin asks, concentrating very hard on not scratching his new ink. “After these two.”

“Well, we’ve crossed off fifteen,” Trys says, scrolling through whatever tables are showing up on his tablet - Robin can’t see them without his glasses. “That leaves every other door between here and Silk Street.”

“Ah.”

“You see our problem,” Ned says, pulling a second phone with a slightly bigger screen from the inside pocket of his jacket - Robin really must get his tailor’s number, because no one else ever has such beautifully cut clothes as Ned’s. Today, he has a beautiful inky black suit, the jacket dotted with tiny silver-white polka dots and lined in bright, fantastic purple, the trousers plain but for a stripe of that same purple down the side-seams. Of course, it helps that Ned’s probably the best looking man in Westeros, but a good tailor can make _ anyone _ look good.

Not the focus here. Not today.

“I see your problem,” Robin agrees, leaning back so he can cross his ankles on the edge of the table. “What can we do? We need to get her away from him as soon as possible-”

“We know, Robin,” Trys soothes him, patting the toe of Robin’s worn boots. “And we’re not alone - we’ve got the full network on this one, we promise.”

Yes, the Sand Snakes and what of the Krakens have defected to Rodrick and Asha, and whatever other nebulous _ networks _ Ned and Trys have access to, but even with all of that it might not be _ enough. _

“I think-”

“No.”

“But he might-”

_ “No,” _ Ned says sharply, casting Robin an absolutely poisonous glance up through his silver-pale lashes. “He isn’t to be trusted, Robin. You know that.”

“But he’s better at this than anyone,” Robin protests, sitting back up again because this is _ serious _ . “Ned, please, this isn’t about control or debts - let any debts he claims fall on me. This is for _ Sansa.” _

“We know that, Robin,” Trys says, conciliatory on Ned’s behalf again. Trys always has to play peacemaker, and always has - even with their newest venture, Ned’s always the one on the hunt, whereas Trys’ work has a more humanitarian bent. “We really do have everyone on this one, but bringing in the Spider is too risky. We’ve seen that, time and time again.”

“That’s why I’m saying _ I _should take the risk-”

“Enough, Robin,” Ned says, and somehow, despite all the ages between then and now, there’s still something of a milkglass white sword about Ned. “We go to the Spider only as a last resort - we still have time.”

Robin isn’t so sure. They’ve all come up against Littlefinger at some stage, but no one was there at the start save for Sansa and Robin. No one else lost both parents to him and _ knew _ it. No one else suffered at his cool, evil hands, not directly.

Robin has. He’s more afraid of Littlefinger than of anyone else in the world, and he wishes the others took him seriously enough to trust that.

* * *

“I’m so sorry about Ned,” Willas says when he answers the door to Jon, who’s a Stark and not a Snow and _ definitely _ not a Targaryen in this turn of the wheel. “I- I’m sorry, Jon.”

Everyone is always sorry for Jon Stark. He’s got one of those lives, and one of those faces.

“Yes, well,” Jon says, because there’s nothing else to say, really. “Arya said she was here - she upstairs?”

Willas offers a sweeping arm of welcome, and Jon claps him on the shoulder as he passes. They’ve never really been close, but he trusts that Jon will behave sensibly - he always does. Usually.

Willas’ house is full to bursting, which is all well and good, except both he and Aster are bad around crowds and there isn’t a room in the house that isn’t heaving with people except for Aster’s attic room, which is no good to Willas, or Willas’ bedroom.

So that’s where he retreats. It’s getting late now anyways, so realistically he can probably get away with abandoning all his visitors for the rest of the evening. They’re all being very careful of him anyway, so he has more leeway than usual provided Marg doesn’t come downstairs. She never gives him an inch, unless Sansa dies or Aster is hurt.

Right now, Aster is studying at the dressing table with a blanket draped over the triptych mirror, and Willas lies face down on the bed just for a few minutes of peace and quiet. Marg and Loras are upstairs coordinating whatever of the search isn’t in the hands of the Sand Snakes and the Krakens and what few dregs of the Watch Jon’s got under his control, and for once Loras isn’t cataloguing his every move on social media. Wouldn’t do for all his thousands of followers to see him and Marg and Ty and half a dozen other famous (or infamous, maybe) faces bent over a series of maps of the cesspit that is the Merchant’s Quarter generally and Satin Street specifically.

He takes out his hearing aid and wrestles his glasses out from under his face - this is rewarded by Aster shoving a notebook right under his cheek as a replacement, and poking him with her ruler until he rolls over and sits up.

_ GOING TO BED. YOU SHOULD TOO. _

_ “Sorry, Mum,” _he says, which earns him dramatically rolled eyes in return. She still sweeps down to kiss him on the cheek, though, and waves her way out the door. He sits where he is, feeling a bit wretched, and then a bit pathetic for being so melodramatic, and heaves himself to his feet so he can shimmy his trousers off and set to work on his brace.

“Only me,” Ty says breezily, coming in before he can object and shutting the door with a firm click. _ “Do you need me to sign?” _

“Nah,” he says, sitting down and kicking his trousers aside with his good leg. “Quiet enough down here that I should be fine. Come in, by the way, it isn’t as though I’m getting naked.”

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” she assures him, digging through his drawers for a pair of pyjama bottoms and coming up with the hideous bright red Sunspear Rangers ones Az bought him as a borderline spiteful birthday present last year. “Azzie’s stumbling up the stairs as noisily as she can, no doubt in the hope that Loras will take pity on her and carry her to bed.”

“He will,” Willas says, not looking away from the stupid straps of his stupid brace. “He’s a - _ fuck _\- a soft touch.”

“Yeah, well,” Ty says, crouching down and fitting his pyjamas over his feet. 

“Yeah.”

Ty takes the seat at the dressing table, looking more out of place than Aster had, and Willas is glad of that. This room, this whole _ house, _has been fitted for his family, and while he loves Ty for her own sake as well as for Aster’s, she isn’t what he imagines when he thinks of the future of this house.

She knows him better than anyone, though. How could she not? She’s been his closest confidante since they were sixteen, and he’s the person he trusts most in the world. He’d have demanded custody of Aster if he didn’t trust the very bones of Tyene Martell.

“So say you find her tomorrow,” Ty says. “Say _ we _ find her tomorrow. What are you going to do?”

“Send her home,” Willas says, not needing to think about it. “Arya’s here to bring her home, and that’s what I intend on seeing done - the very last thing she’s going to need is me letching after her.”

“And then?” Ty presses. “I can’t imagine she’s ever going to want to come back to King’s Landing, Will - will you be happy knowing she’s safe, if it’s not with you?”

“I- well, that’s-”

If Sansa’s Awake, she’ll want to be with him. There’s never been a life where she hasn’t. There’s never been a life where she’s had so much of a life of her own before him, though. Never been a time where she was stuck with Joffrey for so long without a child binding them.

Maybe this time _ will _ be different. Maybe the house was all for nothing.

“I’m not saying this to be a bitch,” Ty rushes to assure him. “I promise, Will, I’m not, but I worry about you so much - what if she can’t be Awakened?”

“I know how to wake her, Ty.”

“But what if you _ can’t, _is what I’m asking. What if there’s no way to wake her without hurting her? What if what’s best for Sansa would be to leave her unaware?”

He’s done it before. More than once, he’s left Sansa unaware of everything between them, left her once in the care of Jon Umber the Younger, once in the sixth Aegon’s - Jon Umber was maybe a better husband than Willas ever has been, no matter how difficult that is to admit, and he can’t bear to think of what his trying to be noble inflicted on her under Aegon’s reign. 

Only the former is worth thinking of, because the first time Sansa married another man was the first time he had Aster.

But he can’t- is he supposed to just let Sansa go? 

“Think about it, Will,” Ty says. “Sleep on it. We still have to find her.”

She kisses his cheek before leaving, and he feels like he might be sick.

_ Sleep on it. _As if he’s going to sleep a wink tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me! Keeping to a posting schedule! Who knew!


	3. Day Three

Petyr didn’t push for anything last night, but Sansa knows it’s coming. Getting her away and helping her disguise herself, putting her in a hideyhole and making it clear that it wasn’t for Mum’s sake - even that little bit of money for a coffee with Mya and Randa last night, it all means the same thing.

No bra left with her clothes this morning. Funny that the one she left tucked into her boot last night is missing, too. Instead, she has a breezy silk-chiffon blouse that ties at the neck but buttons lower than she’d ever wear, and tight, tight high-waisted trousers of the sort that zip in the back and lift in the bum.

It’s all a bit… sexier than she’s ever worn, and it would feel kind of over the top even if there  _ was _ a bra. Even Joff hadn’t liked her to dress this way - he’d preferred elegant dresses, and as the cigarettes had burned further and further down her thighs, her skirts had become longer, the better to keep up their perfect veneer. 

Sansa was always so good at playing the princess-to-be. She’s always been good at that sort of thing. The long skirts became a trend, along with the capelets on her ballgowns to hide the scars on her back and the bruises on her arms. She’d even made surgical masks a thing for a couple of months last autumn, mercifully during flu season. Everyone had bought her excuse of having a bad flu, and the mask had hidden the worst of the bruising and the split lip.

Joff paid for a private surgeon to come in from Lys to make sure her nose looked the same as it had before he broke it, and he hadn’t hit her in the face again.

But this? This is  _ moulding. _ Not the way Joff shaped her, because despite his endless faults Joff was always smart enough to take the parts of her he liked best and put them at the forefront, to push the bits of her he hated aside with his belt. Joff had liked that she was a little different to all the other girls in their circle in King’s Landing, because it made her one more rare, precious thing for him to own. 

Petyr doesn’t seem to really like anything about  _ her. _

Sansa recognises the vague outline of Mum at college in what Petyr’s given her to wear. Oh, the lack of bra is a change, and everything’s tighter and lower cut, but Mum is still there in all of it. Even the glasses he bought her, big old-fashioned frames with plain glass, just to hide her face a little, they’re the same as the awful old things Mum used to wear before she started going out with Dad.

Petyr hates that she dyed her hair. He was the one who bought her the hair dye, but he’s complained about it every hour, on the hour, since then, and Sansa knows that he’s envisioning her dressed like this, but with her own hair. Mum’s hair.

He has to “go out on business,” a little after ten, and Sansa decides that she’s going to risk running into his  _ friends _ \- his guards, she isn’t stupid - and nip out to that coffee shop. It was just around the corner, after all, a tiny little place, with old fashioned square-paned windows and panelled walls, all in beautiful shades of powder blue and off white, and she finds it easily enough, wrapped up in the sleek black trench Petyr left on the coatstand - whether to look more normal to his friends, or as a dare to her, she doesn’t know. 

There are tiny little birds etched into the windows, she notices, what initially look like swallows but which she thinks might just be falcons - falcons, paired with all that blue… Is this Robin’s place? He owns a cafe like this under the Eyrie, and one in Winterfell, and there’s two in Gulltown-

If this  _ is _ Robin’s place, will she be found? Does she want to be found, or does she want to risk Petyr’s heavy gaze for the sake of obscurity?

She opens the door and steps inside. If anyone is going to find her, it’s Joffrey, not little cousin Robin. Joff has the whole secret service at his disposal, from the elite of the Kingsguard all the way down to the grubbiest of Minister Varys’ informants, and if he wants to find her he will.

She wonders who he’ll send for her. One of the Cleganes, probably, and if that’s the case then she hopes for the Hound instead of the Mountain. Best case, he sends his uncle, but that seems unlikely. Jaime Lannister is many things, but he’s not a bully just for the sake of it, and he’s not blind to Joff’s true nature. Sansa hasn’t been ignorant to the way Joff behaves just a  _ little _ better when his uncles are nearby. He wouldn’t trust Jaime to be cruel to her, even under direct order.

The girl behind the counter has a sharp nose and bright golden-hazel eyes, like a hawk’s, and the most fantastically lush brown hair tied back in a high stacked braid. 

“Welcome to the Falcon’s Rest,” she says. “What can I do for you?”

Her name tag reads  _ Ysilla,  _ which sets something itching in the back of Sansa’s mind - but there’s no spark of recognition beyond the vague smile, and Sansa decides she’s safe. For now.

She selects a lemon muffin and lemon pancakes, to go with her sharply sweet hazelnut latte, and ponders just what she’ll do if Joff finds her first. The easiest thing would be to take the beating and go back to the half-life she’s been living, to find her engagement ring and pretend to be grateful to him for rescuing her from Petyr’s abduction.

The hardest thing would be to face him down and get away. To run home to Winterfell and brace herself against him, using - and this makes her feel sick to even consider - Dad’s death as a shield against public outcry. 

Somewhere in the middle is the option of throwing herself off the balcony of his seventh floor apartment, looking out over the Blackwater Rush. That would work. That would guarantee he could never get his hands on her again. It would also break whatever of Mum’s heart is intact after losing Dad, though, so Sansa sets it neatly aside for now. That’ll be Plan Z, for absolutely desperate times. 

Given Joff, she can’t entirely discount it.

She has just enough left out of the money Petyr gave her to buy a coffee to bring with her, once she’s finished her lunch, and it’s because she’s sipping on that that she almost runs into the woman in the doorway - tall, slim, handsome, with choppy dark hair and laughing eyes of a bright blue-grey.

“Well hello,” the woman says, in the husky sort of voice that makes Sansa think she might be a heavy smoker. “Come here often?”

“I- uh-”

She bows and cedes territory to Sansa, holding the door like a gentleman and winking like a rogue.

Sansa steps through. There isn’t much else she can do, especially when the handsome woman looks so familiar, and is watching Sansa as if she looks familiar, too.

* * *

Rodge crashes through the front door like a man possessed, almost knocking Loras down as he comes - Loras steadies him, steers him back toward the kitchen, and pauses.

“I’ll see what they’re saying up on the Hill,” he says, drumming his fingertips on the door. “Hopefully it isn’t much.”

Loras is dressed in his Honourable Mr. Loras Tyrell clothes today, an elegant, slim-cut suit in a bright buff colour over a dark green paisley shirt and polished tan brogues, and with his hair combed and set that way you’d never recognise him as the greasy, headbanded madman in sweaty whites from the tennis court. Today, he’s not Lucky Loras. Today, he’s the King’s brother-in-law, just precisely ordered enough that Willas can focus on him.

“The less they have to say about her, the better,” Loras reminds him - he must have given himself away, too antsy for news of Sansa to think clearly about just how terrible it might be for the Hill, the royal family, to know where Sansa is before they do. “I’ve training after, but Renly’ll try and drop over with any rumours and hearsay we picked up.”

“We might not need any of that,” Rodge says, clearly bursting with whatever it is he’s heard. “That’s why I’m here, Will, we have  _ word.” _

Willas goes very still. So does Loras. So does Arya Stark, just coming down the stairs into the hall.

“Our Asha,” Rodge says, leaning down to take Willas by the shoulders, talking directly into his face. “She saw Sansa this morning - down the Falcon’s Rest, that coffee shop of Robin Arryn’s on Fishmonger’s Lane.”

Arya thumps him hard in the shoulder - hard enough that he looks away from Rodge, meeting the hard steel-grey of her eyes.They’re the same shape as Sansa’s, and she has the same long jaw and long, straight nose, but that’s where the similarities end. Willas is glad - looking at Robb would probably make him cry with the way he is just now.

“ _ Cousin _ Robin,” she says pointedly, “just called me. Ysilla in the Rest sent him pictures of Sansa eating her weight in lemon-flavoured breakfast.”

Arya turns her phone around, and sure enough, it’s Sansa. The hair and the glasses are wrong, but Willas would know her face anywhere, even in shit quality Snapchat screenshots.

* * *

The worst thing about being Awake for all of this shit - and Arya always is, for the worst of it - is knowing what needs to be done, but not being able to do it.

The only thing, the absolute  _ only _ thing keeping her here in Willas Tyrell’s irritatingly lovely house, which Sansa will adore if she gets to see it, is Alla’s constant refrain of  _ think of your poor mum, Arya. _ Alla’s a bitch for a well-intentioned guilt trip, and Arya never has the heart to tell her no, anyway.

Arya’s done an awful lot of thinking about Mum in the past two-and-a-half days. About the way Mum’s legs had gone from under her when Vayon Poole came into the sitting room with tears on his face, and that horrible scream she’d let out while he’d choked the words together. They’d all been at home, for some reason, all of them except Sansa, and Robb had had to pull Mum’s hands away from her face to stop her from hurting herself.

Arya thinks - and Robb agrees, even if Bran is less certain - that they ought to wake Mum and Rickon. Rickon’s an easy target, really, waking up the first time he and Bran are left alone in Winterfell after Dad dies, but Mum is less certain. They can never seem to wake her up by choice, always having to deal with the fallout of her waking herself up by chance.

The time before last had been the worst. First Dad, then Robb, then Sansa. Mum had taken up arms herself for the first time in all of Arya’s memories, the time before last.

This time will probably be different. Arya just hopes they can get Sansa home before Mum wakes up, because otherwise there’ll be hell to pay.  _ Especially  _ if Mum finally realises that Robb’s born Awake.

“Listen,” Robin says, wrapped in clingfilm all up his right arm and wearing one of his fashionable short-sleeved shirts. Robin’s always been the nattiest dresser in the entire family, from what Arya can remember of him, but he’s really taking the biscuit this time around. He’s got  _ mousse  _ in his hair. Might as well change his family arms to a peacock, at this rate. 

Still, he looks good. Not ducal, really, he’s too young for that just yet, but sharp and kind of  _ cool,  _ even if it goes against every big cousin instinct Arya possess to admit that. Whatever medicine they have for him this time around is really working - he hasn’t had a single seizure since they were kids.

“Listen, we need to strike now. Right now. We need to get her away from him as soon as is humanly possible.”

He’s sitting at Tyrell’s beautiful dining table, the one upstairs in the house proper, in the dining room overlooking the back garden - Sansa will love this, if she’s well enough to see it when they find her. If she falls in love with Tyrell, when they find her.

Also at the table is Tyrell, flanked by the brother at his right shoulder and the sister at his left. The eldest Greyjoy, the one that’s in love with Tyrell, is sitting with his leg flung over the arm of his chair, his sister mirroring him in the next seat.

Theon, who Arya still sometimes hates, is sitting beside her on the antique dresser tucked against the wall behind the door. He likes sitting back and watching just as much as Arya does, although in his case it’s more from learned fear than innate caution.

Neddie and Trys are here as well, buried in their tablets with their phones chirping so often Arya would throw them - and their phones - out the window if they were in any other circumstances. They’re tossing whispers back and forth with Ty Martell, Trys’ cousin, and catching all  _ kinds _ of nasty glares from Robb, who arrived by fast train half an hour ago and still has creases on his cheek from using his coat as a pillow.

Arya balances on her hands and, with one foot pressed against the dresser door, she manages to kick the back of his chair.

“Play nice,” she warns him. “They’re helping.”

“I’m always nice,” Robb grumbles. “That’s my whole  _ thing. _ ”

“And here we thought you were a fiery young revolutionary, Stark,” Asha Greyjoy says, so dry she makes Theon sound like even more of a wet blanket than usual. 

“Kindness is a revolution of its own,” Robb says, so earnestly that even Arya doesn’t dare laugh for a heartbeat. It’s what they really needed to break the agonising tension, though, and even Tyrell’s shoulders drop down from his ears.

“Alright,” Trys says, and Arya notices the way Robin curls in on himself now that the conversation has moved on as though he hadn’t said a word. He’s always been a little shy, and because he was sick when they were kids he’d always been on the sidelines. Now, though, he’s got something useful to say, and Arya won’t stand to see anything that might help Sansa ignored. Not this time. “Well, here’s what  _ we  _ found-”

“Robin was speaking, Trystane,” she cuts in coolly. “Why do we need to get her out so urgently, Robin? I know Baelish is a pustule on the face of Westeros, but-”

“He’s obsessed with Sansa,” Robin says. “And I- I can’t be sure, but I think he’s born Awake. He’s obsessed with Aunty Cat, and because she never, ever gives him the time of day, he’s obsessed with getting a, a do-over? I suppose? With Sansa.”

Tyrell’s gone all pale under that pretty Reacher tan of his. Margaery, who Sansa always trusts before she trusts anyone else with what Joffrey does to her, looks sick.

Seems like Sansa hasn’t trusted Margaery with this. She certainly never explained it like this to Arya. Tyrell doesn’t look as much like a slapped arse as Margaery does, so he obviously knew this. It makes sense, Arya supposes, that Sansa would trust her over-and-over again husband with the whole truth. The only people Arya’s ever trusted with  _ her _ truth are Ned, back in the homophobic ol’ days when everyone needed a beard, and Alla.

“_Please,”_ Robin says. “You have to understand - this isn’t just about power or money or any of the rest of it for him. Well, it is about that, but he always- I know him better than any of you. This is the very first time he’s gotten his hands on Sansa without marrying my mother first, and the time before last-”

“Don’t,” Tyrell says. “Robin, please-”

“Sansa died because she wouldn’t play along with his plan,” Robin says. “He usually kills me before I have any power to stop him, and this time it’s just not the  _ same. _ Being Duke of Arryn isn’t much fucking use if I can’t act against the lords nominally under my control.”

Robb’s fingers are drumming hard on the table top. Arya can’t really blame him. 

“Sansa died,” Tyrell says, “because she was married to a fucking madman.”

He looks genuinely ill. He really, truly looks sick with guilt.

“That isn’t what happened, and you’d know if any of you actually asked her about it,” Robin snaps. “Or ask  _ me. _ I was there for all of it. I’m the only one of all of us who  _ saw her die,  _ so I’m the only one of us who gets to decide whether or not we talk about it.”

That shuts everyone up. Even Ned and Trys take their noses out of their screens for a moment, which basically  _ never _ happens. 

“We need,” Robin says, through gritted teeth, “to get her out  _ now. _ ”

“Maybe I can help,” Jon says. He’s clearly just arrived, because Jon more than any of them took his etiquette lessons seriously, and he would never have left his coat on if he was in the house longer than five minutes. “I’m not as, ah, obvious as the rest of you. Might be that I can get close enough to leave her a message. Sansa knows she can trust me.”

“Jon, come on-”

Robb’s chest is getting all puffed up. No matter how close he and Jon are, Robb still gets a little jealous when Jon is  _ brotherly  _ to any of them. He calls it  _ the perks of living to old age,  _ as if that’s a guarantee for Jon. The only one of the six of them who sees old age every time is Rickon.

“I’ve been giving Sansa safe haven from Joff since she moved to King’s Landing for college,” Jon says calmly, yes, shrugging out of his coat and folding it neatly over his arm. “This isn’t a you or a me thing, Robb. This is about doing what’s best for Sansa, and what’s best for Sansa is to get her away from Baelish as soon as possible. Robin’s  _ absolutely _ correct about that.”

Oh, shit. How many times has Jon been the one to get Sansa out from whatever nightmare Baelish has trapped her in? Of course he’s siding with Robin on this one. 

* * *

Mya arrives on her own, knocking on the door and leaning nonchalantly against the opposite wall when Sansa answers.

“Gear up, Alayne,” she says. “We’re going for coffee.”

Sansa has had more coffee in the past two days than in the previous two years. She’s never been a coffee drinker - Joff always discouraged it in case it stained her teeth. Same with red wine, and cigarettes. She’s discovering a liking for it, though. She’s having trouble eating, aside from all that breakfast this morning, and the coffee is helping her power through.

“Okay,” she says, “but I’m broke.”

“Just grab your coat, girl,” Mya says, rolling her eyes. “Trust me, I can afford whatever sugary shit you want to try this time.”

Sansa grabs her coat. She found a bra while Petyr was still out, but not her phone or her purse or any of her things. 

Mya waits patiently. She knocks her shoulder against Sansa’s as they walk down the stairs to street level. Sansa hates the lift - it reminds her too much of Joff’s mirrored dressing room, which locks from the outside - and she wonders if Mya noticed that, or if she’s just as athletic as she looks.

“I was wondering,” Mya says, once they’re outdoors and just out of easy view of the goons who sit in a car directly outside Petyr’s building in four hour shifts, “if you knew that you’d missed a few patches when you dyed your hair. You’ll need to do it again if you want to keep the red hidden properly.”

No. No no no-

“Don’t fret,” Mya says. “I’m not going to rat you out. I’m not going to make any assumptions. Given half of my half-siblings have turned up dead in the past two days, I’m the very last person who’s going to run up the Hill telling tales.”

“Your half-  _ why?” _

“He really  _ has _ been keeping you shut off,” Mya says, frowning. “My useless father is dead, Alayne, and the new King has control of the secret service - which means they’re at his mother’s disposal. She isn’t going to accept even illegitimate competition for her devil spawn.”

King Robert dead. First Uncle Jon, then the King, and Dad-

Why does that feel so  _ familiar? _

“The twins were only little kids,” Mya says. “And if Cersei Lannister is willing to do that to babies like them just for existing, what’s our handsome new king going to do to  _ you _ for hiding?”

“Mya, I-”

“I know all of this,” Mya says, “not because any of their mothers told me. There are plenty of us, and we don’t keep in touch properly. But I’m the oldest. I know how many of us there are, and I know who everyone is. The Spider makes sure of it.”

But if Lord Varys told Mya, then he must have cleared her to tell Sansa, which means  _ he knows where Sansa is- _

Shadric. The spiderwebs. Sansa’s going to be sick. Lord Varys reports every single thing to the Lord Privy Seal, and since Uncle Jon died, Dad’s taken on those duties as Prime Minister.

But with Dad dead, the Lord Chancellor is next in line. And the Lord Chancellor is Joff’s grandfather.

Mya holds open the door of the Falcon’s Rest.

“After you,” she says. “We have a lot to talk about, so pick a comfortable table.”

Sansa picks the half-width booth right at the back, as far away from the two overdressed teenagers with all the phones as possible. Mya is laughing with the pretty girl behind the counter from earlier - Ysabel? No, Ysilla, that’s what her nametag read - but she isn’t long about ordering their drinks and a slice of cake. Two forks.

“Here,” she says, passing over a cappuccino cup overflowing with cream. “Hot chocolate with hazelnut syrup. It’ll help settle your nerves. You look like you’re about to faint.”

Sansa obediently sips her hot chocolate. It’s sweet enough that she can feel it sticking to the roof of her mouth right away. 

“I’m not here to sell you out, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Mya promises her. “Even before that bitch went after the kids, I hated her. I hate  _ them -  _ well, most of ‘em. I just need you to understand that the Spider isn’t going to sell you out either. You have a lot of enemies in this, but he isn’t one of them.”

_ Petyr is. _ But Petyr saved her. But Petyr took away her bras. But Petyr’s helping her hide from Joff. But Petyr won’t let her contact Mum. 

_ Has he touched you yet? _

“Why?” Sansa asks. “If you’re telling the truth - and I don’t know that you are - why would he help me?”

“He respected your father,” Mya says, which makes Sansa laugh. No one in King’s Landing liked Dad very much because he was impossible to bribe, and fewer still people respected him. He was too direct, too straight-forward, for the stupid power games played at court and in parliament. “I’m serious - he might live in the shadows, but he admired your father for refusing to do the same. More people than you realise admired your old man.”

Sansa doesn’t believe that, but what does she know? Nothing, if Joff’s to be believed, about anything.

“I get wanting to stay with Littlefinger,” Mya says, sipping her own drink - coffee, black, with a lot of brown sugar. “I hear he’s your brother’s godfather. He grew up with your mum. I understand that. Just be careful that he’s not expecting a fee.”

_ Has he touched you yet? _

“If I believed you,” Sansa says, stabbing the thin end of the slice of cake with her fork. “Say I believed you. What does that mean for me?”

* * *

_ “Arya? Trys. It’s definitely her.” _

“Did you talk to her?”

_ “She was with someone. Ned’s sending some pics as we speak.” _

“How’d she look?”

_ “As if she hadn’t slept in days,” _ Trys admits. “ _ But she likely hasn’t, so that’s to be expected. Well, though. I don’t think anyone’s laid a finger on her.” _

Alla’s phone bleeps, and she makes a funny little noise when she opens the message.

Arya looks.

“Trystane,” she says. “You’re so smart. How are you so stupid?”

If Renly was a woman, he’d look just like the woman in Neddie’s photos. Why in the  _ world _ is Sansa having coffee with some distant Baratheon cousin?

“I’ll show them to Renly,” Alla whispers. “He came in about half an hour ago - I think he’s downstairs with Margaery.”

Arya offers up her cheek for a kiss while Trys explains that he’s calling instead of Neddie because Neddie is trailing Sansa back to whatever hideyhole Littlefinger has her hidden in. 

Maybe - just maybe - they can get to Sansa before everything goes entirely to shit.  _ Maybe. _

Trys signs off with something succinct in Dornish that Arya can’t quite catch, and she sighs. It’s so easy to feel older than they are, with all the history weighing them down, but they’re not old. Sansa is just gone twenty-six. Arya is twenty-three in a month. Even Robb isn’t thirty yet. 

Even that’s older than Robb’s ever been. Gods. What a mess. 

Robb is downstairs with Margaery Tyrell, too, talking about therapists and cosmetic surgeons, for all the scars Margaery says Sansa has all over her back and her legs. Arya knew there was harm done, but she had no idea of the scale. She understands why Sansa didn’t tell her - no guarantee that she wouldn’t rat that shithead out to Dad, who probably would have committed Crown Prince-icide had he known - but it still stings, to know that Margaery Tyrell knows more about Sansa on this turn of the wheel than Arya does.

“Right then,” she says out loud, just to snap herself out of it. She has to share Trys and Neddie’s findings with Robb, and send him off on the overnight train so he can try and wake Mum up.

Then, maybe, they can set Mum loose on Littlefinger. That would be a sight.

“This isn’t a cousin,” Renly is saying, when Alla pushes into the dining room, shaking her phone in Marg’s face. “This is my  _ niece. _ Robert’s eldest daughter. He’s got… Oh, I don’t know how many. He’s never really understood protection. It’s amazing that Cersei had a chance to murder him, really, before whatever concoction of STDs he’s collected got him.”

“Why would one of your brother’s children  _ not _ turn Sansa in immediately?” Robb asks. “Wouldn’t they all want to get in cushy with their kingly brother?”

Arya imagines Gendry, who in this world is making probably the coolest jewellery she’s ever seen, cosying up with Joffrey Wormlips. She just can’t see it.

Renly takes an old-fashioned fold out photo wallet from the pocket of his jacket, where it’s hanging on the back of a chair. He folds it out fully, and then picks up a whiteboard marker from the table and starts putting thick black X’s through some of the photos. He turns it over and repeats the process on the back.

“The ones who have survived Robert by longer than three days,” he says, “will barely take a call from me, and I’m the one who pays their child support and sends them birthday cards. What in the gods’ names makes you think they’d want anything to do with the son of the woman who murdered half of their brothers and sisters?”

Well, shit. 


	4. Day Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are pancakes, maternal outrage, and a chance for escape.

Aster is up at half seven, and she’s making such a clamour in the main kitchen that the whole house gets up with her.

“Say a single word,” Tyene warns their grumpy guests, “and I’ll cut your throat. She probably doesn’t have her hearing aids in.”

Willas came up in the lift, but he came up on his crutches. Ed was right that he was a stupid idiot for not doing his exercises as soon as he got home from the airport, and he’s paying the price now. He uses his crutch to get Az’s attention, though, while Ty’s threatening the lives of everyone else currently living in Willas’ house.

Aster swats at him with a spatula in return for him poking her in the arse with the base of his crutch. She’s wearing her glasses and doesn’t have her hearing aids in, and she looks more like him than like Ty, for once.

“ _ Pancakes?” _ he guesses, because it’s the only thing other than paella that Az ever makes. She makes delicious pancakes, fluffy and rich, and she  _ did _ duck out with Marg for an hour yesterday afternoon, which explains why she’s pointing insistently toward the dining room.

“I didn’t even know this many types of berry existed,” Trystane says mildly. Somehow, he and Ned both already have coffee in one hand and phones in the other, and they take the two seats furthest from the door without further comment.

“Welcome to Highgarden,” Alla says, grinning. She’s much brighter and sharper than she used to be, in Willas’ uncertain estimation, and he suspects Arya Stark has something to do with that. Sansa’s sister can be a bitch, but never to the people she loves. Willas generally gets a sort of hard-edged tolerance from her, but he’s seen her with his children across enough lifetimes to know that that’s mostly a front.

“I’ll help the kid,” Arya says, pushing him toward the dining room. “Get out of the way, Tyrell, sit down.”

She and Ty get on well, so there’s no risk of tension there. Margaery, wearing a peacock feather print silk dressing gown, with her hair held back by her eyemask, might present more of a problem.

“Tell Az,” she says to Ty, “that I want mine  _ almost _ burned.”

She sits down next to Willas, bleary-eyed and scowling.

“I was up all night trying to get a hold of Myrcella,” she says. “She’s changed her bloody voicemail message, but she doesn’t seem to be checking it! Renly says he hasn’t been able to get her alone for a moment, and poor idiot Robb is  _ beside  _ himself with worry that King Turd has hurt her.”

“He wouldn’t,” Willas agrees, pouring her a glass of apple juice. She only rarely drinks coffee, and she worked through all of his tea except Az’s carefully guarded stashes within a day. “Communications might be monitored, though. You know how controlling he is.”

“And then there’s bloody Edmure,” Marg goes on, fuming visibly. “What bloody good is it to charge around shouting that there’s foul play in Sansa’s disappearance? Of  _ course _ there’s foul play! She’s disappeared!”

Aster kisses Marg good morning when she arrives with their pancakes, and then she drags a chair around to sit at the corner between Willas and Marg.

_ “You need to wash, Dad.” _

_ “I’m washing!” _

_ “Your hair? If you’re having trouble with your leg I’ll do it over the sink.” _

_ “Last time you washed my hair you tried to dye it Rangers red.” _

_ “I promise I won’t now!” _

He takes the bowl of raspberries from the middle of the table and puts it down between the three of them. He prefers strawberries, generally, but they’re Sansa’s favourite and he just isn’t in the mood at the moment. Az gives him one of her narrow looks, but she doesn’t say anything. 

Everyone always assumes that Az must be quiet, because she’s mostly deaf and prefers to sign. They only think that because none of them speak her language. As soon as Aster finds out that someone in the room signs, she doesn’t ever, ever shut up. She’s like Tyene that way, and like Loras, and Sarella. A silence from Aster has enormous value, because she usually can’t resist passing comment.

“She’s right,” Marg says, nudging Az and giving her a thumbs up. “You look like you’re one-third grease.”

“At least he doesn’t smell,” Ty calls from the far end of the table. She’s leaning over Trystane’s shoulders, reading whatever he’s reading, but she takes the time to straighten up and speak a little slower, so Az can read her lips. Lipreading is bullshit, mostly, but Az can manage a little with people she knows well, and she knows Ty better than anyone.

That stings, but it’s true. Part of the reason Willas keeps his beard trimmed so short is so Az can read his lips a little easier, and she’d have an even easier time of it if she’d lived with him half as much as she has with Ty. 

He puts his arm around her shoulders. Gods, he misses her when she’s at Starfall. It’s best for her, but he  _ misses  _ her.

They eat. Az eats most of the raspberries, and Marg steadily works her way through the rest of the raspberries, then the blueberries, and then she moves onto the boysenberries. 

“Now,” Marg says, pushing away her plate and throwing berries one by one down the table at Trystane and Ned. “Little boys. Tell me what you’ve skimmed from the palace communications.”

* * *

Winterfell in mourning is strange.

Robb’s sideways with tiredness, but Rickon’s waiting with half a dozen members of the home security team when he gets to the lobby. 

In past lives, in older times, Robb would have had Smalljon with him, or Dacey maybe. They have security teams of their own this time around, though, so instead Robb has a cousin of Jory Cassell’s, Adam, Lar Hornwood - entitled to his father’s name only because his mother threatened to go to the papers - and a rough-haired boy called Dannyl Snow, who has to be a Mormont with a jaw like that. They’re good, well-trained and sensible, but they’re not his sword swords.

He misses Smalljon and Dacey and the rest if only because they were also his friends. He’s still adjusting to growing up with people his own age this time around, because the only other time he hasn’t been thrown into adulthood at fifteen was the time before the time before last, when Dad survived. 

There’s a shrine of sorts, on the footpath across the road from the main doors of Winterfell Central. Whoever set it up used a great photo of Dad, taken outside the Fell’s last match of the league last year. He’s wearing a Fell scarf, grey and white hoops, and a bobble hat that Arya knitted for him on a dare that has so many dropped stitches that his ears are poking through. Robb knows the picture - Mum’s on the end of Dad’s outstretched hand, decked out in full Riverrun checkerboard, but they’ve cropped her out. Fell won forty-two to ten, closing out their best season in a decade. They’d all gone together, and poor Mum had been the only person in the entire Builder’s End not wearing Fell colours.

It’s a great photo. Robb doesn’t realise he’s staring until Ricky grabs him by the wrist.

“Bad news,” he says. “Uh, really bad news. Mum went into town to see about arranging for Dad to be brought home pronto, and that woke me up.”

“Fuck, Ricky, I’m sorry I wasn’t here-”

“Finding San is more important,” Ricky says. “Bran was here, and Uncle Ben’s come down from Wallside to help with the arrangements.”

Much to Robb’s annoyance, Ricky’s been taller than him since he was fifteen, but he’s like a nettle - skinny and prickly. He doesn’t really fit under Robb’s arm anymore, but he folds himself down to fit unless there’s some of his cool friends about. 

“There is worse news,” he says, one skinny arm wrapped tight around Robb’s back. “Well, depending on your idea of worse.”

“Please tell me Mum hasn’t-”

“Mum’s Awake, too,” Ricky admits. “Surprise!”

* * *

Mum’s more than Awake.

Mum’s absolutely  _ furious. _

“I assume you and your sister are hunting for Sansa,” she says, once she’s kissed his cheek hello. “Tell me everything.  _ Everything,  _ Robb Torrhen Stark, or I will get  _ really _ angry.”

* * *

“Well, Mum’s Awake,” Arya Stark says, putting a cup of tea down on the table by Aster’s hand and touching her wrist to catch her attention.  _ “Here, kiddo. _ But yeah, Bran just texted me. Seems Mum’s gone and woken up, and she wants answers.”

She puts her laptop, already open, down on the table. The screen, and therefore the camera, is facing Willas.

Catelyn Stark looks very well, all things considered. Sansa’s mouth goes thin like that when she’s angry, too.

“Hello, Your Grace,” he says, terrified of offending her, all things considered. 

“I think we’re a little beyond titles just now, young man,” she says. Her voice is tinny through the shit laptop speakers, but that’ll be remedied as soon as Trys finishes setting up his and Neddie’s command centre in the dining room. “I hear you’re the man to talk to, so tell me. How soon do you intend on having my daughter back?”

* * *

“I hear you went out  _ twice _ yesterday, sweetheart,” Petyr says. “Once I might have forgiven without explanation, but twice? Are you  _ trying _ to get caught?”

Petyr’s always been big on breath mints, but he’s obviously going overboard at the moment. His breath is cold against Sansa’s neck, and his hands are cold around her wrists.

Joff always preferred to pin her hands over her head. He said it made what little tits she had stand out more, and it made it easier for him to lean in and pin her properly. Petyr’s got her hands down by her hips, though, and he’s talking right against her skin, low and even and calm. 

Or, well. He’s giving the appearance of calm at least. Sansa doesn’t really believe it. 

“Why can’t I call my mother?” she asks, keeping her voice as steady as she can - steadier than it is usually, then, because she’s got tons of practice at this. She’s better than anyone she knows under pressure, because there’s no pressure like being pinned to the bed with Joff’s hand tight in the hair at her nape while he demands to know every move she made while on a night out in White Harbour for Wylla’s birthday.

“If you do as you’re told, I’ll keep you safe,” Petyr insists. It feels awfully like he’s sniffing her skin.  _ Has he touched you yet? _ “And when the time is right, I’ll escort you to Winterfell myself.”

_ Has he touched you yet? _ He’s touching her now, and it’s making her skin crawl.

“You just have to do as you’re told, sweetheart,” he says, breath cold and hands clammy. “Can you do that?”

Mya gave her a bra, and she hasn’t taken it off - even in the shower, she wrapped it in her nightdress and hung it inside the curtain. She feels sick with all this strange, implied danger. At least with Joff it was all straightforward. He shouted at her and called her names and he hit her, usually with his hand and sometimes with his belt, and if she did something that really embarrassed him, he’d put out a cigarette on her thigh. She knew what to expect with Joff. Even now, if she goes back to him, she knows exactly what he’ll do. He’ll beat her unconscious, and then he’ll never let her go ten yards from him without one of his loyal cronies watching her.

Which would be better? Trapped by a crown, or trapped by Petyr’s memories of her mother?

Or trapped by a spiderweb? That’s a choice too, if Mya can be trusted.

“I went out for breakfast,” she says. “Because there was nothing in the kitchen. And then Mya came to see if I wanted coffee, and I didn’t have a good excuse.”

Sansa’s queen of good excuses. She’s been using every excuse in the book to avoid ever becoming Queen of Westeros since she was nineteen, after all. If Petyr has been paying attention as closely as Sansa’s starting to think he has, then he probably knows that. 

“She’s dangerous, silly billy,” Petyr says, letting go of her left wrist so he can put his hand on her waist. “Half a Baratheon, the other half raised as fat old Arryn’s ward-of-court. She can’t be trusted.”

_ Has he touched you yet? _

_ Just be careful that he’s not expecting a fee. _

_ Petyr was always a funny one. He used to beg that we play kissing games, the silly kind you play when you’re little, even when we were in secondary school.  _

Mum always played it off as a joke. They’d been kids. They grew up together. She never found him creepy. Uncle Edmure had, though. Uncle Edmure had  _ never _ liked Petyr, and had gathered Sansa and Robb and Arya and Bran together one day while he was babysitting them, when Mum and Dad were at the hospital for a scan while she was pregnant with Rickon, and told them never to call him  _ Uncle _ Petyr.

He’d told Sansa never to let him too close. She’d thought he meant at court, because the Lannisters never really trusted him and it would just be one more thing for Cersei to hate her for, but Sansa knows better now. She gets it.

_ Baelish used to stand right under the bannister whenever there was a ball or a party, _ Edmure had said.  _ He used to wait for Cat and Lysa to come down the stairs in their dresses, and he’d always be right there, staring straight up. _

He’s worked his fingers under her top. They feel even colder on her waist than they had on her wrist.

_ Has he touched you yet? _

Not yet, but she should have known. It’s been coming for years.

* * *

“You’re not crossing the Neck,” Robb says. Even Mum’s terrible fury won’t be enough to sway him this time, because he’s a lot more scared of what might happen to her than he is of what she might do to him. “Every time you cross the Neck after we lose Dad, we lose you too. I’m not doing that to the others, and I’ll have the guards keep you here if I have to.”

“Sansa is my daughter, Robb,” Mum says. “And even if you  _ are _ Duke of Norham now, I’m still your mother. You can’t tell me what to do, young man.”

“This isn’t about telling you what to do, Mum! This is about keeping you safe - keeping  _ all _ of you safe! I’ve never managed it before, and I’ll be damned if I let a second one of you disappear before Dad’s even in the ground!”

Mum crumples. She does at every mention of Dad, and while Robb said it without thinking he’s not above taking advantage. 

“Listen to me,” he says, but gently. She’s shaking a little when he puts his hands on her shoulders, but this has to be said. “I have to keep you safe too, Mum. Not just the others. You too.”

Robb lets her pretend not to be crying when he pulls her in close. He pretends, too.

“Have you heard anything from Myrcella?”

Mum likes Cella only a little more than she likes Joff. Robb hasn’t been able to be mad about that, on the whole, and he hopes that Mum might soften up a little now that she has her befores back. She usually does.

“I’ve had a couple of snaps from her, but nothing useful,” he admits. He hasn’t quite let go of her yet, but she doesn’t seem to mind. “I’m worried about her. I tried to see her, but it’s all Lannister guards on the Hill and they didn’t want to let me in. Renly and Loras have both seen her, but they can’t get talking to her.”

“I’ve been ghastly to her, haven’t I?” Mum sighs, patting his back. He lets go a little. “Once we have Sansa back, I’ll make it up to her.”

“The timing on that one is a little fuzzy, Mum,” Bran says. Robb hadn’t heard him come in because he’s using his mechanical chair instead of the motorised one, the little shit, but he doesn’t look smug to find Robb having a cuddle with Mum like Ricky would have, or Arya. He looks a bit dazed, which means he’s had a Seeing. “But I can tell you that Myrcella is going to be just as she is now when Tommy marries our Robin.”

“And Sansa?” Mum asks, smoothing both hands over her hair the way she does when she’s really, really freaked. Arya does the same thing. “Did you See her, Brandon?”

“She looked good,” Bran says, smiling. This must have been one of his rare, clear Seeings, because he’s usually a lot less willing to share his visions. “Fruitful, almost.”

Mum makes a noise like she’s having a stroke. The little  _ shit. _

* * *

“Put it this way,” Rodge says. “Asha and I may not run our crew the way our dear uncles do, or the way Maron does, but we’re still a little less refined than any of you.”

Rodge and Asha always look like they’ve just come from ravishing some beautiful wench in a corset and big skirts, all rakish and tastefully dishevelled. Edmure’s always been intensely jealous of Rodge’s whole look, because thanks to having bright red hair and more freckles than anyone really deserves, that sort of cool has always been out of his reach.

They’re all here, in poor Will’s destroyed dining room. Little Martell and Lyria Dayne’s nephew have turned a whole wall into a monitor bank, and they’re running things from a series of phones and tablets that Edmure’s fairly sure each cost a month’s rent for most people in the city. You could house a family of four for years with all the equipment in this room, which is a harrowing sort of a thought.

Little Martell and Ty are showing for the Vipers, and then there’s Asha and Rodge for the Krakens. No one for the Spiders, because no one is stupid enough to court that particular risk, and Edmure can’t help but wonder how it is that the extensive intelligence network the Tyrells and Hightowers run, formally unified by Fat Mace and Fair Alerie’s marriage, has escaped a shitty nickname.

Ned’s Jon is glum in the corner, clean-shaven and somehow even sadder than usual because of it. He’s watching everything with those dark, thoughtful eyes of his, and that’s another thing that always makes Edmure wonder. How come Jon Targaryen-Stark was allowed to become just plain old Jon Stark without so much as a murmur? Ned himself used to say that he had no real influence over the King, but he let the son of his most hated enemy grow up and thrive without a word because he was Ned’s nephew - just what did Ned  _ have _ on Robert?

“You’re looking thoughtful,” Arya says, plopping down in Edmure’s lap as if she’s still ten and bony, instead of twenty-three and muscley. “What’s turning the old cogs, uncle?”

“Well, niece,” he says, “they’re a little stymied by your weight.”

“I’m featherweight,” Arya says cheerfully. “There’s a  _ reason _ I win so many races, Ed, and it’s only sort of because I’m the best jockey going - the horses all but forget I’m there, most of the time.”

Fair enough. Barbrey Ryswell takes a lot of credit for Arya’s success, but really, the Rills have only been doing so well since Arya signed on to ride for them. 

“The wheels are spinning, duckling,” Edmure says, adjusting her a little so her still-boney arse isn’t quite as painful on his thigh. “I’m going to let them spin a little longer, see where they end up.”

Of all Cat’s annoyingly clever kiddos, only Arya shares two vital things with Edmure: she’s left-handed, although that might have come from Ned’s sister, and she’s dyslexic. She gets taking an extra moment or two to process things. 

“How’s Robin?” Edmure asks, because Robin gets lost in the stampede whenever there’s something going on. He’s a good, smart kid, though, and Edmure wishes more people paid him heed. It isn’t his fault Lysa’s got less sense than an angry goose. “He wanted to know if there were any of Roslin’s lot we could trust, but…”

“I know how much you love Perry and Olly,” Arya says, “but I hate every other brother Ros has, so I’m hesitant to let even them in.”

“Shame the Twins always lean west,” Edmure agrees. It really is a shame, because he adores Roslin, but her family are all at best insane and at worst evil. “Anything from your friends and family? You’ve got an eclectic little address book.”

“Most of whom have as little as possible to do with politics. I’ve asked around, but there’s nothing yet.  _ Yet. _ If that bastard gives her even a little more leash, someone will see her. Robin’s people and Neddie and Trys say that she’s dyed her hair, but how many women over six foot tall are walking around King’s Landing?”

Edmure tucks Arya in close. She likes to let on that she’s a tough nut, but she’s soft at heart. Cat’s just the same. 

“Morning,” Will says, easing himself down into the chair next to Edmure. He’s wincing and grinding his teeth, which means his leg’s in bits - but he’s wearing both his glasses and his hearing aid, and his hair is freshly washed. That means he’s keeping it at least mostly together, and they probably have Azzie’s presence to thank for that. Will would rather die than let Aster down even a little bit.

“Do your nieces still sit in your lap, Will?” Edmure asks idly, rocking Arya like a baby. He’s gotten good at that since Coren was born, because he won’t sleep unless he’s rocked. “How old are the girls, four? Five?”

“Six and three,” Will says, with what might even be a genuine smile. “Merry’s six and doesn’t want anything to do with me if Aster is on hand, and Marry’s still shy of everyone who isn’t Gargoyle, Leo, or Dad.  _ Isn’t that right, Az?” _

Aster’s had her hair cut since last she stayed with Willas, and it makes her look terribly grown up. Edmure still remembers her as the tyke who used to colour in all of their notebooks while they were at uni, and there’s something just a little upsetting in seeing her as something approaching an adult. The short hair  _ does _ show up how much she looks like Will, though. 

_ “We all love Granddad best,” _ Aster says, and then she kisses all of their cheeks, even Arya’s. She’s an affectionate girl, and always has been.  _ “Try not to take it personally, Dad.” _

She sits beside Will instead of on top of him, and Edmure gives Arya a pointed look which she cheerfully ignores.

“Alright,” Margie says, and it’s somehow strange seeing  _ her _ look quite so grown up, too. Everyone younger than Edmure and Will and Rodge and Renly sort of stayed as kids, in his mind, and having so many of them gathered together like this is just one shock after another, it really is. “Here’s what we know for certain.”

Loras is obviously on his way back from some sort of training session, because he’s got that bulgy-eyed madman look that he only gets after exercising. 

“Sansa’s within easy walking distance of the Falcon’s Rest on Fishmonger’s Lane. That means she’s no more than a mile from it, so-”

They’ve set up an honest to goodness overhead projector, spurning little Martell’s many screens in favour of something a little more old-school. Margie draws a neat red circle around the neat black X on the map.

“Thanks to Trys and Neddie,” she says, “we know that Sansa is being held in one of twenty-four properties within this radius. Baelish owns forty-six, but we’re sure he isn’t keeping her in a brothel, and she’s not being kept over any of his strip clubs, either.”

“Renly,” Loras says, “has had a few friends of ours ask discreet questions. He didn’t want to spook his niece, the one Sansa was spotted with yesterday, but from everything we can gather, she’s a Spider.”

Will’s tentative smile drops.

“The good news about that, though, is that we know where she is,” Rodge points out. “She’s in that cafe every day at lunchtime. She’s manager of the biggest taxi firm in the whole of the fucking Merchant’s Quarter, but she always comes in there a little after noon for her lunch. We catch her, we use her to get Sansa out safe  _ and _ we send a polite message to the Spider that he should fuck the fuck off.”

Rodge is signing for Aster, as all of them who were there when Will and Ty were trying to balance a toddler with college do. The Tyrells didn’t make anything of learning sign, not even old Olive Oil herself, and neither had the Martells, so they hadn’t either - Edmure and Rodge, Renly and Lyria, Humfrey and Leo, they’d all learned sign to make things a little easier on Az as she was growing up. Edmure is still proud of Will and Ty for not making the decision about implants for her, because she’s quite happy with signing and her hearing aids.

Gods above, though, she has the same fuck-ugly taste in glasses as Will.

Rodge keeps on signing when Asha speaks. 

“I’ve laid some groundwork with the pretty girl behind the counter,” Asha says, “so Rodge and I propose that I lay a little more groundwork, and see if I can’t get in with Miss Mya.”

Everyone starts talking all at once - Arya’s Alla has a great deal to say, as do young Martell and Lyria’s nephew, and Margie and Loras have their usual double act rolling over the top of the whole mess even before Rodge and Asha start losing their tempers.

Ned’s Jon stands up, slinking over to Margie and Loras and their projector with his hands in his pockets. 

“I think,” he says, just loud and firm enough that everyone stops, “that I might be able to help.”

“And why’s that, Stark?” Rodge asks with narrowed eyes. 

“While I don’t doubt that Asha could seduce her way into just about  _ anyone’s _ underpants,” he says, “there are other ins.”

“What sort of ins?”

“I might just be able to reach her,” Jon  _ Targaryen- _ Stark says, with a smile that has nothing to do with Ned, “if I try royal bastard to royal bastard.”

* * *

Joff’s face is all over the front of the newspaper.

It’s the first newspaper Sansa has seen since the day before Dad was murdered. Petyr’s been exceedingly careful to keep anything approaching current information away from her, but Kettleblack-no-first-name brought this with him. He’s been sitting in the kitchen all day, making sure Sansa doesn’t go anywhere, and she slipped in when he went to the toilet just to see.

He looks handsome. Joff always looks handsome, even dressed in full mourning blacks. No one down south has worn full mourning in years and years, but of course Cersei has decided that Joff ought to wear them for public appearances. He’s probably been bathing in champagne to celebrate his father’s death, but he’ll do his utmost to make sure everyone thinks he’s really cut up about it.

Sansa wishes she had something black. Even a rosette or an armband would do, but there’s been a conspicuous lack of mourning blacks in the clothes Petyr’s been leaving out for her. It feels disloyal to Dad to  _ not _ wear black, but she can at least wear her hair in mourning plaits - that’s old fashioned, and pretty much only Northern, so no one will notice it. Not even Petyr.

Cella’s in some of the pictures with Joff. She’s wearing full mourning, too, but Sansa knows her just enough to know that the grief on her face seems a lot more genuine than Joff’s noble suffering. 

Once she’s seen Cella, she looks closer. If Cella’s making public appearances, maybe Robb will be with her - or maybe Robb and Mum will be appearing up at home! She just wants to see that they’re both alive, that they haven’t fallen in Dad’s wake-

Why would she even think that? Why would her first concern be making sure that Mum and Robb are  _ alive?! _

They’re on page four. Robb looks grim, but well. Mum’s pale and drawn, and her hair is braided tight to her head and then down over her shoulders, one long plait on each side. Northern mourning braids, just like the ones Sansa is wearing. There’s some sort of blurb about the search for Dad’s killer, and the search for Sansa.

_ One and the same. _ No! Why would she think that? What could Petyr  _ possibly _ stand to gain through Dad’s death? The Lannisters trust him even less than they did Dad, so it isn’t as though they’d ever appoint him Prime Minister, and even without the strict year of formal mourning demanded by Northern custom, Mum would  _ never _ consider remarrying. She never has before-

_ What before?! _

“You shouldn’t be reading that, little lady,” Kettleblack says, tugging it out of her hands. “I’d get my head down if I were you. Boss’ due back soon.”

If Sansa gets into her room before Petyr gets back, she can get changed and lock the door without him interrupting. That’s good. That’s what she’s going to do - it’s good sense, and a bad sign that even Kettleblack-no-first-name is advising caution.

She gets changed. She wears the tight, kind of sheer exercise leggings Petyr left, and the tight t-shirt to go with it. The alternative is one of the lacy nightgowns that fill the top drawer of the dresser in the corner, above the drawer full of skimpy knickers. 

She keeps on the bra Mya gave her, and her socks, and leaves her hair in her mourning plaits. She locks the door. She gets into bed just as the apartment door bangs shut. Petyr and Kettleblack talk a little, their voices low, and Sansa shuts her eyes tight.

The door bangs again. Kettleblack leaving, presumably. He’s barely gone before Petyr’s tapping on Sansa’s door.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he croons. “Open the door. Let Uncle Petyr in.”

He’s slurring a little. Drunk. Sansa doesn’t move.

“Don’t be selfish, sweetheart,” he calls. Something grinds in the lock - a master key, probably. Of course he has a master key. Why didn’t Sansa take a knife from the kitchen? Kettleblack probably would have taken it off her, but maybe not. “Come on now, I know you’re happy to see me.”

The door clicks open, and Sansa tenses under the blankets. The light that spills in from the hall is muted, but Petyr’s footsteps on the thin carpet are not.

He stops to take off his shoes. He tucks them against the wall by the door, and then he sits on the edge of the bed. The far edge of the bed.

“Now, Sansa,” he says, chiding and swaying a little as he starts to take off his shirt, button by button, “you had to know there was a price to pay for your rescue, sweetheart. Nothing in life is free.”

That’s the funniest thing Sansa has ever heard, because Petyr was given access to the very highest levels of society for free, simply because her grandfather felt sorry for his father - because Hoster Tully was a good man, before the cancer ate away at him, Petyr Baelish became someone. 

The lamp on the cheap bedside locker is heavy in Sansa’s hand. It’s one of those bendy desk lamps, but it’s got a thick metal base, and it  _ clunks _ satisfyingly against the side of Petyr’s head.

In the muted light spilling in from the hall, his blood on the pale, thin carpet looks black. Sansa doesn’t think on that for too long, because she has to find her shoes and get the hell out, as fast as she can.

Petyr’s keys and phone and wallet are all in the safe. Shit. Well, she has a fairly good idea of where in the city she is, and she’s sure that she can get to Marg’s from here. If not Marg’s, then maybe Jon’s? Even if Jon’s away for work, or if he’s gone home to help with arranging Dad’s funeral, Val will be there. 

Oh, gods be good, what has she  _ done? _ What if Petyr is dead - she’s a murderer! She’s going to jail, which is the last thing Mum needs now, after losing Dad-

“Evening, Miss Stark,” Shadric says, stepping from the shadows under the stairs right as she gets the front door of the building unlatched. “Think it’s time you and I had a little talk, don’t you? Miss Stone’s been keeping us all  _ very _ well informed about you.”

The Spiders. Oh, oh gods, the Spiders, so Sansa will be presented to Joff on a platter to pardon or punish as he sees fit, and either way, she’ll be dead before the year is out.

Shadric puts a jacket around her shoulders and leads her down the street to an unremarkable car, and she starts to cry when he opens the door for her. Better under lock and key than under Petyr, she supposes.

* * *

“ _ Bad news,”  _ Rodge says, and Willas scrambles to get his phone to his good ear so he can hear properly. “ _ Really shit news, to be honest.” _

“What’s going on?”

It’s only ten o’clock, so surely there can’t be anything too terrible going on?

_ “Renly called,” _ Rodge says.  _ “Tyrion’s got the kids out of the palace, but Stannis won’t take them, so they’re with him. But there’s worse, Will.” _

“What could be worse than Stannis being a prick?” Willas asks, waving Marg down into her chair. They’d been playing Cluedo with Aster, who’d gotten bored halfway through and left them to it, and the whole sitting room smells of cinnamon because Marg has a heavy hand when she’s making hot chocolate. “Although I suppose that goes without saying.”

_ “It’s Sansa, mate,”  _ Rodge says.  _ “We found where she’s been kept earlier this evening, but we couldn’t get her out without bloodshed - and now she’s gone, with someone I don’t recognise, and we’ve lost her in the traffic.” _

* * *

“Trust me,” Sansa can hear him saying on the phone. “Mate, have I ever lied to you?”

The wood floors in the hallway squeaks under Sansa’s feet. The whole place still smells a little of fresh gloss paint, because they had to replace all the skirting and architraves when they replaced the doors. 

“Trust me,” Jon says again, winking to Sansa as Shadric ushers her into the kitchen. Val is sitting at the island, rubbing the side of her belly - baby must be kicking, she told Sansa just last week that it’s much more active than her sister’s baby was - and the woman sitting with her looks very like Arianne Martell, except her eyes.

Sansa doesn’t know anyone with purple eyes of any sort. Any Martell she’s ever met has the most stunning dark brown eyes, which cuts down the list of who this woman might be. Cuts it all the way down to  _ one. _

Jon hangs up the phone.

“Hey, San,” he says. “Have a seat - have you met my sister? Rhae, this is Sansa, Uncle Ned’s eldest daughter. Sansa, this is Rhaenys.”

Rhaenys Targaryen, eldest child of conveniently dead Rhaegar, smiles. Sansa’s only met Oberyn Martell once or twice, at formal events, but there’s no denying it. 

“Cousin Varys,” Rhaenys Martell-Targaryen says, still smiling, equal parts charming and venomous, “has been  _ most _ helpful in arranging for our return to the country.”

“I’m sure you’ll be just as interested as we are in seeing to it that some things change, San,” Jon says, guiding her into the high stool next to Val’s. “Here, have a cuppa, and then you can have a wash and go to bed, and in the morning we’ll talk things through.”

Jon’s a Spider. Jon’s a good deal more a Targaryen than they realised.

“Does your mother know about this?” she asks, shocked into speaking by Val’s hand running warm and gentle up and down her back. “Did Dad?”

“Mum and I haven’t talked in weeks, San,” Jon says. “But no. Uncle Ned didn’t know. He might still be alive had I told him.”


	5. Day Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's an awful lot of running around involved in funerals, and escapes, and coups.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting mad early in the day because our wifi is down at home so I'm doing this at work - enjoy!

Before Sansa was born, before _ Robb _ was born, there was a different king. 

There was a different royal family, never mind just the man in the hat. The Targaryens had ruled for hundreds of years, and they’d weathered civil wars and scandals by the bucketload. They were the ones who unified the Seven Kingdoms, and while there were plenty of people unhappy about that, it held, because the Targaryens held.

And then there was Aerys. 

Aerys the Second, last Targaryen king of the United Kingdoms of Westeros and Dorne, was overthrown by force. A clandestine alliance of his most powerful vassals had used a series of poor choices made by his heir as an excuse to act, instead of doing their duty and moving as soon as the King’s very genuine insanity became clear.

No, they’d waited until Prince Rhaegar made a cock up, and used the _ dishonour _ he’d done Aunt Lya as an excuse to remove first his father, then his entire family from power. It had all been for the sake of Lyanna’s _ honour, _as far as Robert Baratheon’s PR team was concerned, with no mention of the suspicious circumstances of Sansa’s grandfather’s death, or the debilitating injuries Uncle Brandon took in attempting to flee the city with his father’s remains - injuries that had claimed his life before he even reached Winterfell. No, that hadn’t mattered to the Baratheons and the Lannisters, not when there was a grand, romantic cause that the press would eat up with a spoon. Not when acknowledging that the true root of the trouble had been the murders of the Duke of Norham and his heir would put Robert Baratheon anywhere but front and centre.

King Aerys died while Jaime Lannister was supposed to be attending him, and Prince Rhaegar fell down a flight of stairs on his way to negotiations with Robert Baratheon, or maybe on his way back from negotiations - that had never been very clear. That left Queen Rhaella and Princess Elia isolated, with four young children between them, and it hadn’t taken a great deal for Tywin Lannister to menace them into abandoning the Red Keep. Everyone was too afraid of the massive armies the Lannisters and the Baratheons had idling all around the city to do anything, and even the armies that mustered in Dorne hadn’t been enough to encourage anyone else to throw in behind the infant king. No, Robert Baratheon successfully staged a military coup, usurped the throne, and rewarded Tywin Lannister for his support by making fair Cersei his Queen.

Officially, of course, King Aerys was removed for the benefit of the people of Westeros, by the benevolent alliance of the Dukes of Durran and Casterly, supported in all but the military sense by the Dukes of Arryn and Norham. To their great sorrow, King Aerys and his sole adult heir died in the brief violence of the king’s removal, and with a heavy heart, the Duke of Durran, as was, became King Robert I Baratheon.

No one spoke of Aerys’ four legitimate child heirs. No one spoke of the Queen and Crown Princess who fled with those four children before the new king’s brother could bring them into _ secure custody. _Certainly no one spoke of the much-mourned Crown Prince’s bastard, left with his ruined mother in the depths of the North.

That self-same bastard is making breakfast for Sansa, and explaining the Targaryen perspective on the whole thing. Dad was never one for bitterness, and Aunt Lya had always made it quite clear that _ she _ never asked anyone to go to war for her, but it’s still a little shocking to hear King Robert so baldly called a monster.

“Mum and Elia kept in touch,” Jon says, “and now, here we are.”

“The Baratheon regime is illegitimate,” Rhaenys says, her dark purple eyes bright behind her screamingly chic glasses - Pentos, Sansa has been told, is at the cutting edge of fashion - as she tears her toast into tiny pieces. “Had they offed Egg the same way they did our father, they’d be a _ little _ better positioned, since the throne always passed to the next male heir. Even then, there still would have been three legitimate heirs, including my uncle and aunt, ahead of that usurping bastard - no offence, Jonny.”

Sansa isn’t sure which is more upsetting - that Jon’s _ brother and sister _ call him “Jonny,” or that he’s hidden all of this from their family. He and Robb have their problems, of course they do, and Sansa had been perfectly awful to him when they were kids, but he and Arya have always been like peas in a pod. It seems absurd that he didn’t at least tell her, but Arya hasn’t the sense the gods gave a cat when it comes to secret-keeping - she would have told Sansa straight away. 

“I know this is a lot to take in, San,” he says, plating up two fried eggs - sunny side up, with runny yolks for dunking her toast and sausages into - and two each sausages and smoked rashers. “But this isn’t just about birthright. The Baratheons are running the exchequer into the ground, and everyone’s feeling it except them and the Lannisters.”

Jon’s got a doctorate in economics - Sansa couldn’t have given anything more specific even under torture - and he did his masters in Pentos. He knows to keep the figures and the jargon to an absolute minimum with her, because Sansa’s talents have always lain much more in languages than in numbers, but she knows to trust him. He’s never guided her wrong on this sort of thing before.

Then again, right up until last night, Sansa would have said that Jon never lied about anything at all. Now what is she supposed to think? _ Damn _ it!

“And you think, what? You sweep in and overthrow the Baratheons, and everything just magically gets better? You think the Lannisters are going to just stand there and let you dethrone Joffrey?”

“We’re a little more realistic than that,” Rhaenys says, rolling her eyes. She really does look like Princess Arianne, just with sharper edges - exile will do that to you, Sansa supposes. “But you don’t need the specifics. Suffice to say, money is the main issue here, money and the murders of your father and Lord Arryn, and we have the means to correct quite a few of Robert Baratheon’s mistakes.”

“The first of those mistakes,” Jon says, “was making Petyr Baelish master of the Royal Mint, and then promoting him to Chancellor of the Exchequer.”

The mention of Petyr makes Sansa feel sick. Black blood on bland carpet, and cool, creeping hands, and cold breath on her ear-

“Well, he won’t be a problem anymore!” she says, and even to her own ears her voice sounds shrill. “Not to anyone!”

Jon and Rhaenys share a confused look, and Sansa presses her hands over her face. She’s laughing, and maybe crying, and definitely hysterical. Val’s hands are a welcome weight on her shoulders, and the smell of her rich, woody perfume is familiar enough to ground Sansa just a little.

“What do you mean, hon?” she asks, squeezing Sansa’s shoulders gently. “Did he tell you something before you got away from him?”

“Last I saw Petyr, he was bleeding from the head,” Sansa says, “so you can thank me for fixing _ that _ mistake!”

* * *

“Jon has her.”

Neddie and Trystane are already dismantling their command centre, mostly for something to do. Willas will have his dining room back by lunchtime, earlier than anticipated, because Jon Stark has been lying to them.

Pardon - Jon _ Targaryen _ -Stark, since he has apparently not disavowed his father’s family quite as entirely as everyone previously believed. Arya Stark was so stunned that Alla put her to bed with what she’s calling a _ migraine, _of all things, and Willas is so angry he just might throttle Jon when next he sees him.

_ “Jon has her,” _ Robb Stark confirms, with his younger brother sharing the screen. Bran looks remarkably like Sansa, with the same narrow features and overlarge eyes, but there’s a serenity in his expression that comes entirely from his being a Seer. _ “I’m just as angry as you are, Willas, believe me. I won’t tell you the kind of things Mum has been saying, and it’s only gotten worse since Aunty Lya arrived.” _

“Why would he do this?” Renly asks, leaning over the back of Willas’ chair. Damn it all, if the Targaryens are coming back, if they _ succeed, _what does that mean for Renly? Can Dad protect him for Loras’ sake? Renly was a child during the coup, so they can’t bear him any sort of personal grudge, and handed Storm’s End and the duchy to Stannis as soon as he legally could, this turn of the wheel, so it isn’t as though he has a title to lose, but he’s still a Baratheon. He’s still vulnerable simply for sharing his brother’s last name. “It makes no sense - have they promised him authority? Legitimacy?”

Willas couldn’t bear to see Renly harmed, both for his own sake and, more importantly, because Loras would be completely destroyed.

_ “We’re surprised by this too,” _ Bran reminds them, sounding almost cheerful. Seers really are a nightmare in times of crisis - none of them are any use, since their visions always come at random and without context, but they always seem to have seen something that assures them that it’ll all work out in the end. It’s _ infuriating. _

“That’s not what we should be focusing on,” Willas says, flashing Renly a small, grateful smile. If things go well, then the Starks will be his in-laws, and it would be easier to _ not _ have them hate him from the off. Renly’s always had charm enough to take himself out of any consequences for asking the uncomfortable questions, though. “The why of it all, that can be explained later - for now, we need to be sure that Jon will put Sansa on the next northbound train so she can be home for your father’s funeral.”

“Wouldn’t advise that,” Tyene calls from the door. “A little recon revealed that there are goons in crimson ties at all the train stations and at the airport. She’s stuck here, unless they get a more convincing disguise lined up for her.”

“Then he can drive her home,” Renly says. “It’s a long hunt, but I think he damn well owes everyone a favour after spending the past who knows how long working with fucking _ Varys.” _

“I’ll drive her,” Margaery says firmly, virgin Black Rhaenyra in hand and glasses on the bridge of her nose. It was a late one last night, trying to figure out how the fuck the Spiders’ apparent loyalist sympathies had stayed so quiet, and Marg must be cross-eyed with tiredness if she’s not wearing contacts. That’s more worrying than the half bottle of tobasco sauce she put into her drink. “Get her into a car, and I’ll drive her. She’ll feel safe with me, which I can’t imagine she would with the littlest prince.”

_ “Road blocks,” _ Bran says. _ “Not yet, but by the time you got to Harroway, the whole place would be shut down. Sorry, everyone. We’ve got to sort out King’s Landing before we can bring Sansa home.” _

_ “So helpful, Branny,” _ Robb says, rubbing his hands up and down his face just the way Sansa does. _ “How do you propose we do that?” _

* * *

“Our brother is due into King’s Landing the day after tomorrow,” Rhaenys says, “and I’d like you to be here to meet him.”

“I have to be in Winterfell the day after tomorrow,” Sansa says. “So does Jon. For Dad’s funeral. We need to go home.”

Although Sansa does have to wonder if Jon even considers Winterfell home anymore. Does he consider the North home? Dragonstone is probably his true home now, even though he’s never even been there. Sansa has, tons of times, since Joff’s investiture - she even chose the drapery for the private residence, because it’s going to be _ their _ residence, when they marry. 

If they marry. They won’t marry. Sansa’s probably going to prison for murdering Petyr, and the Queen can’t be a jailbird. And that’s if this planned coup - recoup? - of the Targaryens’ doesn’t work out. 

It will. Something is niggling in Sansa’s head, under the panic and the exhaustion and the sudden, almost overwhelming certainty that this is all _ stupid, _ that the coup will work. It’s the same something that said Joff isn’t really King Robert’s son, or that said Mum had never remarried before, and the same thing that has her rubbing her thumb over the round rose-pink birthmark on the inside of her wrist, over and over, and the same thing that has her wondering why it is that the coiling red dragon that’s wrapped around Val’s upper left arm doesn’t look at all like a tattoo, when there’s nothing else it _ could _be.

The coup, the reclamation, it will work. Sansa will celebrate anything that takes power away from Joffrey, because she of all people knows what a terrible thing it is to be under his control, but if Jon and his _ family _ think they can stop her from going to Dad’s funeral, they have another thing coming.

“I want to speak to Mum,” she says. “And if not Mum, then I want to speak to Robb, or Arya. Arya was in King’s Landing this week, and I want to see her. I know you’ve seen her, Jon, the two of you can’t go three days-”

“You’re not seeing anyone, Sansa,” Rhaenys says. Jon is standing behind his _ sister, _arms folded and head down, and Sansa feels completely betrayed. “This isn’t a social engagement. You can’t just put on a pretty dress and swan your way away from this.”

“I haven’t _ just _ put on a pretty dress in a long time,” Sansa says, feeling every single one of the cigarette burns on her thighs. “And your suddenly emergent plans don’t change the fact that my father was murdered this week, and that he will be interred in our ancestral crypt at Winterfell the day after tomorrow. You told me that you want to use his murder as part of your campaign, and now you’re saying I can’t even go to his funeral? Ridiculous.”

She’s feeling very brave. She isn’t sure why.

“We can’t allow that,” Rhaenys says, “until we have confirmation of your family’s backing for the steps that we must take.”

Petyr still has Sansa’s things. Her phone, the watch Uncle Edmure gave her for her twenty-first with the sapphires at the cardinal points, her charm bracelet and her bangles, and all of her rings. Especially her engagement ring. He can take that one with him to the grave. 

Well, Petyr is probably dead. But her things are still wherever Petyr put them, or else she would simply call Mum and be done with it. Jon was on the phone with Robb just last night when Sansa arrived, so it isn’t as though he _ can’t _ put her in touch with them. He just _ won’t. _

* * *

Arya has done plenty of dubiously legal sleuthing since she came south for college, thanks in no small part to being friends with Neddie and Trys. Alla’s helped, of course, which is how they ended up going out in the first place, but this is more than _ dubious. _

This is going into known hostile territory, armed with a ruddy great stick, with the intention of hitting anyone who tries to stop her. At least this time she’s got more robust defence than just Alla, in the form of Rodrik and Asha Greyjoy. 

Rodrik - _ Rodge, _ pardon her, he’s _ cool _ now - is in love with Willas Tyrell, but he isn’t at all pathetic about it, which Arya likes very much. He’s quite direct and straightforward, if only because he’s probably horribly depressed by all the terrible pasts he has, but Arya very much appreciates that, because straightforward tends to go hand in hand with good sense. 

Arya has a Seer for one brother, a baby for a second, and a Robb for the third. She’s too much like Mum for the boys not to drive her up the wall, and so she values good sense above all else. Alla, for all the silk flowers she likes to braid into her hair and her taste for soft little ballet pumps instead of sturdy boots, is overflowing with good sense. Arya wouldn’t be half as mad for her as she is otherwise.

The building Sansa escaped last night is unremarkable for this part of town, just far enough off Satin Street to be away from gentlemen’s clubs and into brothel territory. There’s a strip club with a tacky neon sign directly across the road, and two separate sexual health clinics within spitting distance. Arya hopes very much that she won’t have to escort Sansa to any such clinic - Joffrey’s refusal to inflict sexual violence on San has been his one and only positive trait, and the very last thing Arya wants is for her sister to have experienced that final nightmare.

“She came down the stairs,” Rodge says. “I saw the automatic lights come on as she moved.”

“Did you see how many floors?” Asha asks, and there’s a big knife hidden in her waistband, under her very swish leather jacket. Arya decides not to comment on it.

“Six landings,” he says. “And then the ugly little man met her in the lobby, I assume.”

Sansa’s had dealings with Shadric the Mad Mouse before, although she definitely doesn’t remember it just yet. If she was Awake, she would have charged right out of Jon’s shiny apartment and come back here to make sure Littlefinger was dead.

“So here’s the plan,” Asha says, succesfully picking the lock on the outer door. “We break in. If Baelish is alive, we bag him up. Either way, we find your sister’s stuff, smash the place, and go.”

“By _ bag him up, _she means bring him with us,” Rodge clarifies, because Arya’s concern must have been clear on her face. With the Greyjoys, nothing would surprise her.

The inside of the building is clean and neat, but not extravagant. The lino in the lobby is pockmarked by a thousand stiletto heels, and the varnish on the bannister is peeling a little, but the floor is swept clean and there’s no funny smells or stains on the walls. 

“If he’s alive,” Arya says, starting up the stairs, “I call dibs.”

“Sounds fair,” Asha concedes. “But don’t be afraid to leave him for one of us if he comes up swinging.”

Arya’s known Petyr Baelish all her life, and thinks he’s more likely to play dead than to fight, but one never knows.

Rodge keeps Arya in the stairwell when Asha swaggers over to knock on doors, asking after her uncle, he’s new here, small man with a goatee, you might have seen his lodger if not him, tall girl with badly dyed hair.

The second door yields results - two doors down, Asha’s told, and she’s invited to drop by whenever she’s visiting her uncle next, too. 

Two doors down, the door is open. Only a little, and they only notice because they’re looking. But it’s open, so they let themselves in.

No need to mention that they were going to let themselves in regardless. 

It’s bland, all shades of beige with no personal effects - the opposite of Sansa and Jeyne’s flat, which is pretty, but something of an eyesore. Sansa’s probably in some sort of depression over being deprived of colour, especially since she’s in Jon and Val’s place now, which is all sleek dark wood and pale white walls. There’s a kitchen, empty of everything except yesterday’s Telegraph and instant coffee, and a sitting room that doesn’t even have a radio, never mind a telly. 

There’s a bathroom. There are purpleish splashes of hair dye on the unremarkable white tiles above the bath, and a toothbrush on the sink. 

There’s a bedroom. Boots with a heel in Sansa’s size, clothes that are pretty much the opposite of Sansa’s style in her size in the wardrobe, lingerie in the dresser, and a bloodstain on the pale carpet.

“No Littlefinger,” Rodge says, leaning his elbow on Asha’s shoulder. “Interesting.”

Jon didn’t think to share the pertinent little detail of Littlefinger’s possible death at Sansa’s hands when he rang Robb, apparently, but Val texted Arya asking that she confirm one way or the other. If the other, she offered the services of her brother-in-law and his friends to dispose of the body. 

“Dangerous,” Arya says, wondering how in the world Sansa had the strength to knock Petyr out with those skinny arms of hers. “Even more than usual, because now we have no idea where he is.”

* * *

Tommen’s the only one of the kids genuinely cut up about Robert on any meaningful level, so Renly doesn’t question it when the poor little bugger just slips past him into the house.

Myrcella, who he suspects is putting on the tears and the mournful face specifically to annoy her mother, kisses him on the cheek.

“Thanks for this, Renly,” she says. Even knowing, every time, that they aren’t really his niece and nephew, he can never do anything but love them. Tommen’s the sweetest boy in the world, and Myrcella’s got most of the good of her shitshow parents and surprisingly little of the bad.

“Baratheon,” Tyrion grumbles, nudging Myrcelle on ahead. “I had them, you know.”

“They’re safer with me,” Renly says. “When the truth comes out, no one will look for them here.”

Because the truth _ will _out. It always does, eventually, and this time seems to be running at high speed. While everyone else has been busy looking for Sansa, Loras’ uncles and aunts have been conducting discreet, politely menacing enquiries that are going to bring Cersei and her hellspawn to their knees, and maybe hamstring Tywin as a bonus. Cersei has never been the most discreet of women, and while Brigadier-General Sir Jaime Lannister doesn’t really seem to have any friends who might share his secrets, his devotion to his sister has always been… too much. Everyone who knows him knows that, so it won’t take much convincing to get the truth across.

And even if it does, well. The Hightowers are _ very _ convincing.

“Coming in?”

“I would, but I’m already in trouble for getting those two out,” Tyrion says, rubbing a tired hand over his face. “I’m sorry, Renly. About Robert.”

Renly has never been close to either of his brothers, not in any of their many lifetimes, and he never misses Robert when he’s gone. What he does miss is the stability of Robert’s rule - his being alive is the only thing that keeps Cersei’s maggot off the throne. While Robert lived, they could work on pushing legislation through parliament. Nothing short of a royal veto could stop a majority vote, and Robert never gave enough of a shit to veto anything. Jon Arryn’s conservatism had kept things slow when Renly was first old enough to enter parliament, but Ned Stark had always been shockingly democratic. Shockingly _ republican. _

Renly hopes that _ Robb _ Stark shares his father’s sentiments. No matter how tits up everything goes, Renly’s seat isn’t inherited so it’s solid for another two years, until the next election, and his alliance will hold even with Tywin Lannister promoted to Prime Minister, but having a liberal voice in the fixed benches will help.

“You should run for parliament,” is all he says, becase to accept symapthies for Robert would be the next thing to lying, and Renly has learned over all his lifetimes that lying always bites him in the arse. “For a seat on the open benches.”

“And then my family really _ would _kill me,” Tyrion says, with that sardonic little smile of his. “It wouldn’t be the first time, but I’d rather escape that particular fate this time.” 

“I’ll keep the kids safe.”

“Please do.”

If only Tyrion weren’t a Lannister. They could be friends if not for that.

* * *

Robb feels a little weak in the knees just seeing Myrcella’s name pop up on his phone, and he nearly hangs up on her in his panic.

“Are you okay?”

_ “Is Sansa? Joffie’s been looking for her since- Oh, Robb. I’m sorry.” _

“So am I, babe,” he sighs, pinching his nose because he’s coming over all light-headed with relief. “Do you need anything? Would you and Tommy be safer up here?”

_ “Your poor mother has more than enough to deal with without us two getting in the way,” _ Cella says, and he can hear her smiling at him. “ _ And we have Dad’s funeral, too. Tomorrow morning.” _

“Fuck, babe-”

_ “I’m formally excusing you from attending,” _ she says. _ “As I hope you’ll do for me.” _

“Of course.”

He can hear chatter in the background of her side of the call - Tommy, probably, although whoever he’s talking to doesn’t seem to have a Western accent. 

“_ We’re in Renly’s,” _ Cella says. “ _ I can hear you worrying all the way from here, Robb Stark. We’re safe. Tyrion brought us over. They’re still thinking of us like little kids, but they will keep us safe.” _

Robb doesn’t say that of course they still think of Cella and Tommy as kids, it’s so rare that both they and their uncles live to adulthood that it would be strange to think any other way. He doesn’t say that because he knows the same is true for his family - how many times did Lyanna die before most of them were even born?

“Did he hurt you?”

_ “You know he didn’t,” _ Cella says. _ “He wouldn’t, babe - not this time around. Too many people watching - too many people suspicious of what he was doing to Sansa.” _

Robb regrets not just kidnapping Sansa away from Joffrey years ago. He’d tried, of course, but there was no way of keeping her from college, and no way of keeping her from Joffrey when she was at college. And then when they’d gotten engaged, and it had all been so public, well, the weight of tabloid media had held San firmly in place at Joffrey’s side. 

Robb still regrets it. It’s his job to look after her, and he’s only managed it in maybe half of their goes around. If only they had a way of waking her, but the only person who’s consistently managed _ that _is Tyrell, and his method has never worked for anyone else. 

“Fuck the timing on this,” he says. “Fuck every single thing about this.”

_ “Renly said that Sansa’s safe, though?” _

“Safe as anyone can be surrounded by Targaryens,” Robb admits. “Jon’s, ah, gone native, I suppose. He has _ apparently _ been in close contact with his brother and sister since he went to college in Pentos.”

_ “You’re not serious.” _

“Deadly.”

_ “You said surrounded,” _ she says. _ “I assume that means more than just Jon and the baby?” _

“The sister is leading the charge. From what little Jon told me, the brother is arriving the end of the week, presumably with the aunt and uncle.”

_ “Princess Elia? The Queen Dowager?” _

“No mention of either, but given the only Martells we’ve heard a peep from all week are Tyene and Trystane? I’d say it’s possible they’re already on the ground. You know how dangerous the Martells are when they work together.”

_ “And Prince Doran ceded legislative authority to Arianne just last year. Shit.” _

“We’ll figure it out, babe,” he promises. “You’ll be safe enough when you’re Duchess of Norham, though, and I can give sanctuary to any of your family as need it.”

_ “But not my mother.” _

“Cella-”

_ “I understand it,” _ she rushes to assure him, _ “but it’s difficult. How’s your mum holding up? She’s always so brave.” _

“Fit to kill,” he says. “She woke up. Absolutely furious, of course, but it’s hard to blame her for that.” 

_ “Babe. What are we going to do? If the Targaryens are on the warpath-” _

“They can’t kill anyone,” he says, hating that that’s the best assurance he can give her. “They’ll trade on the murders of their father and grandfather, and probably the murders of _ my _father and grandfather, and Uncle Brandon, and maybe Uncle Jon. That means it has to be a bloodless coup - they lose their legitimacy of grievance otherwise.”

Robb wouldn’t mind if Joffrey was trampled in the stampede, but he can’t say that to Cella. No matter what sort of monster Joffrey is, he’s still her brother.

* * *

“You’ll like Nana, San,” Jon says, shrugging into his coat. “She’s a doll.”

Sansa’s got a grandmother still alive, but not the one she shares with Jon. Grandmother Stark died of heart failure before the coup, but Granny Min is alive and viciously kicking in Riverrun. She’s the most caustic, sarcastic woman in the world with everyone except her grandchildren and Mum, and she’s given Sansa dozens of escapes from Joff by inviting her to stay every single weekend, without fail. It’s only a couple of hours each way on the train from Landing Central to Red River, and Granny Min loves any opportunity to break out her ridiculous bright yellow convertible, which Pop refused to travel in.

She’s not so sure about Jon’s _ Nana. _Will Queen Dowager Rhaella call him Jonny, too?

Jon’s going to collect _ Nana _ from the airport - she’s travelling on a false passport, and will be transported to the house of an unknown friend immediately upon her arrival. Princess Elia is already in Dorne, safe in the bosom of her family, and apparently Prince Viserys and Princess Daenerys are already in the country, too all in preparation for Prince Aegon’s arrival the day of Dad’s funeral. Sansa hasn’t been told where any of the _ royal family _ are, specifically, but she can make a few educated guesses. She’s not an idiot, and she’s been so close to the Baratheons for so long that she knows well who’s considered a holdout Targaryen loyalist to the degree where Joff, repeating his grandfather’s rhetoric, wanted them killed for the preservation of the Baratheon dynasty going forward. 

Princess Elia is probably at Blackmont, Sansa thinks, stepping into the shower to try and scrub away the stink of Petyr’s presence. She’s already showered twice today, but Val’s made sure that neither Jon nor Rhaenys say a word about it. The Blackmonts provided her and her children with their escape route after the coup, and the Countess personally drove them out of the city - a good thing, given the car they were _ supposed _ to travel in was later found to be rigged with a bomb.

Sansa only knows _ that _ because she once overheard Joff’s uncle and grandfather talking about it. Lord Tywin thought it a shame that characteristic Dornish suspicion and distrust had robbed them of a neater solution to the lingering Targaryen threat. Sir Jaime’s always had a loose tongue, and it’s never looser than after he’s returned from a long deployment and had a happy reunion with sweet Cersei. 

Strange, that. It really _ is _ strange, although Sansa’s never thought about it until now, not really. Dad’s- Dad _ was _ close to both Uncle Ben and Aunty Lya, but they were never _ weird _about it, not the way the Lannisters are.

_ And always have been. _

There it is again. That strange little voice that’s been whispering since Dad’s blood and brain landed hot on her face.

She scrubs a little harder. Val helped her strip the worst of the dye from her hair this morning, but the suds of her shampoo are still coming up dirty and mucky looking. 

But if Princess Elia is with the Blackmonts, and Princess Rhaenys with Jon - probably using the Stark name as a shield, damn him - then where are the others? The Queen Dowager will be brought to Old Monford, because the Velaryons are close relations of the Targaryens and have always, always sat uneasy under Baratheon rule. It’s a short run from the airport to the Driftmark Ferry, and High Tide is more fortress than city - even if the Targaryens fail, there’s no way into High Tide short of flying, when the gates are closed. She’ll be safe there, safer than anyone else in the country if it comes to war.

Sansa couldn’t do Design with languages, in UCKL. So she did _ History _ with languages. Joff used to laugh at her for studying dead men. He used to make fun of her for not having a head for figures, because _ he _ was studying Finance and Economics. 

Jon is a doctor of Economics, and he’s never made Sansa feel stupid about it the way Joff always does. That’s always reminded her of Dad and his patience, but she doesn’t want to compare Jon to Dad at the moment. He’s a _ Targaryen, _now. 

She’s going to think about Targaryens. Thinking about Joff makes her feel dirty.

Prince Viserys? He’s next in line to the throne behind Prince Aegon, in theory, since it’s always passed to male heir, so he’ll have to be kept safe as well. Somewhere in the Reach, Sansa imagines - not Highgarden, of course, that would be too obvious and not defensible enough, and not the High Tower because the Earl is quite mad, by all reports. There are still loyalist holdouts, so somewhere in the Reach. Princess Daenerys might be with him, but Sansa thinks it’s more likely that she’s hidden somewhere in the Crownlands, close to her mother and the city, but also close to the airport and the port at Duskendale if a quick escape is needed.

And Prince Aegon. Sansa had no idea who could be trusted with him. With the man who would be king.

_ Jon Connington. Arthur Dayne. Gerold Hightower, if not Leyton. Uncle Oswell. _

Why in the world- Jon Connington had died a drunk in Pentos, everyone knew that, Arthur Dayne had retired into hermitude after the debacle of Prince Rhaegar’s affair with Aunty Lya, which he helped facilitate, and Gerold Hightower was an old, old man, uncle to Lord Hightower, _ the _ Old Man.

But Uncle Oswell? Rattling around Harrenhall like one of its many ghosts? That might be the most ridiculous of all. He served as a member of the Kingsguard during King Aerys’ reign, true, but there’s no one more bitter against House Targaryen in the world, now that King Robert is dead. Why would Sansa even consider him for such a particular role in the bizarre production her life has become?

She nearly slips and falls when someone knocks on the bathroom door.

“Sansa? You’ve been in there half an hour, pet. I’ve fresh clothes here if you want them.”

Val. Yes. Get out of the shower, and have lunch with Val, and try not to be sick at the idea of Jon being part of a conspiracy to stop Sansa from attending Dad’s funeral. 

Oh, _ gods. _

* * *

Margaery comes rumbling down the backstairs right as Willas is seeing Trys and Neddie and the last of their equipment out the door. She’s the least put together he’s ever seen her, and he’s struck - not for the first time - by how deep and sincere her friendship with Sansa is every single time. 

Sansa’s family generally doesn’t like him very much, but his family _ loves _ her.

“Go away, savages,” she says, kissing Trys on the cheek when he leans back to pull the door behind him. “Be safe, don’t get in trouble, come back in the morning.”

“Can’t,” Trys says. “I’m at the royal funeral as one of Papa’s representatives in the morning.”

“Bollocks,” Willas says. “Dad rang me earlier and I ignored it - I probably have to go as well, don’t I?”

“I’ve hung out your robes,” Marg says. “We can steam them in the morning if need be. But go _ away, _Trystane. Family business.”

Trystane goes, and Margaery puts her phone down on the dining table. 

“Az is creeping about the rafters,” he says. “Do you need her?”

“I need you,” Marg says, “and you need to hear this.”

She presses play.

_ “I know you don’t answer private numbers so I won’t take it personally. Margie - I need to get home for Dad’s funeral. Everything is gone insane. I know I’m always asking favours, but I promise that this is the last one. Can we meet? No one else will help me, but you always do. I’m sorry, Marg, but there’s no one else I can trust. Oh! This is Sansa, just in case.” _

Willas sits down - carefully, so as not to hurt his leg.

“She called again straight after with the number,” Marg says. “I’m meeting her this evening, during the removal. Is it okay if-”

“Yes,” he says, without hesitation. “Yes, M, of _ course.” _

“Don’t be weird at her,” Marg warns him. “I know you. Don’t be weird.”

“She has more than enough to worry about without me being weird,” he promises. “Do you- shit. Have you told Arya?”

“She’s going to be at the funeral as well,” Marg says, “and then she’s going to be flying home for her father’s funeral right after, on a private flight. A _ diplomatic _ flight.”

Only the Crown, the Prince of Dorne, and the seven dukes can assign an internal flight diplomatic status. A flight with diplomatic status cannot, under any circumstances, be searched. 

“She can stay here as long as she needs to,” Willas says. “I- Marg, are we going to-”

“If you jinx us now,” she says, “I really _ will _ throw you off my balcony.”

* * *

“So,” Val says. “You’ve had a horrible introduction to Rhaenys.”

“You could say that,” Sansa says, tucking her feet up under herself on the deep, soft couch in Val’s dressing room. “She’s… Direct.”

“She’s not usually like this,” Val says. “The first time I met her, she’d asked Jon what my favourite food and favourite colour were, and she’d made beef and ale pie and was wearing white. She’s a people pleaser, usually. A real sweetheart.”

“She seems it.”

Val laughs, tossing all her fantastic caramel-blonde curls back over her shoulder. 

“Put it this way, San,” Val says. “If she was as much an arsehole as she’s seemed since you met her, I wouldn’t let her into the house - but she’s here. Jon wouldn’t have let her near you if he didn’t trust her.”

Sansa’s silence obviously speaks volume, because Val gives her a _ look. _

“Believe me,” she says, and Sansa always does. “I wasn’t happy with him about it either. I could have killed him for not asking them to put it off until _ after _ the baby arrives.”

Val’s due in just over a month, as far as Sansa knows, and she can’t help but wonder if maybe Robert’s unexpected death-

_ At Cersei’s hands- _

\- maybe pushed up their timeline.

“They’re pushing this whole economic agenda because that will appeal to Parliament, but it’s not about that, not for Rhaenys,” Val says. “I think the pressure is getting to her more than to anyone else, but it’s because she remembers their dad. You can understand that, can't you? Don’t you want justice for Ned?”

* * *

“Please, _ please _ tell me you’re not thinking of picking Sansa up in that.”

It’s poor Wynafryd Manderly’s car again, looking like it rolled off a Silk Street stage - no one else would drive a turquoise car other than a Manderly. 

Or Marg. Because everyone else knows better than to let her behind the wheel.

“Who would ever drive something like this on a stealth mission?” Marg points out, which is true. “I’d never do anything stupid that might risk Sansa, and I’m insulted that you think otherwise.”

“Don’t be like that.”

“Don’t _ you _ be like that! You don’t know Sansa this time, Willas! As far as Sansa’s concerned, you’re a kindly stranger who’s doing a generous favour for his little sister, _ who is her closest friend.” _

“Ah.”

“Exactly.”

* * *

Val is eight months pregnant, and so of course she can’t take the physical risk of sneaking Sansa out of the house and to her and Marg’s meeting point.

So she calls a friend.

“Miss Stark,” Mya Stone says, leaning against a slightly dingy taxi of the sort Sansa would always avoid on a night out. “Fancy a lift?”

“Text me as soon as you get into Margaery’s car,” Val says, “and ignore everything Mya says.”

“Why are you doing this, Val?” Sansa asks. “Getting me away, I mean. Rhaenys and Jon made it clear that they have- that there are _ plans. _Ones I’m involved in.”

“I know what those plans are,” Val says. “And I think you’ve probably had enough of people making decisions for you - so get into Mya’s car, and let us help you get to safety.”

“If I’d realised how bad things were,” Mya says, holding the door for her, “I’d have brained Baelish myself. Come on, Stark. Let’s get you out of here.”

* * *

“_ If your dad tries to act the prat,” _ Marg says, _ “tie him down.” _

Aster grins, just the way Gar does when he’s given permission to be a brat.

Will’s gone to the removal - Ty went with him, because her father isn’t officially in the city and there has to be _ some _Martell on display. Prince Oberyn will be out and about for the funeral, of course, but tonight is more for the people than the lords, and there is no real ceremony. Aster’s not alone, of course, because Arya and Alla will be upstairs for another half an hour or so and then Will will be home, but Marg still worries. She always worries.

* * *

Val gave Sansa a hat and glasses to wear as a disguise, and the kind of cool ripped jeans and combat jacket that she wears, which Sansa would _ never _ wear.

Which Joff would never _ allow _ Sansa to wear.

The procession from the Palace, high up on the High Hill, to the Great Sept is running away nicely. The city feels empty, echoing with the bells ringing out from Visenya’s Hill.

Sansa is on Rhaenys’ Hill. She’s sitting on the steps of the UCKL Arts Building, where she and Marg first became friends, and she can’t help but laugh when Wynafryd Manderly’s absolutely terrible dark turquoise coupé with the teal seats. Fred is a good friend of Robb’s, and he hadn’t let her live down the ugliest car in the North - not until he bought a dark metallic grey SUV with white leather upholstry, and had to shut up.

Marg isn’t even wearing concealer, and her hair is in a high ponytail. She looks stressed to the gills, and Sansa has never been happier to see anyone in the world.

“Hi,” she says, and she’s crying. “Oh, _ Marg-” _

Marg grabs her so tight it hurts. 

* * *

Margaery’s an even worse driver than usual when she’s anxious, but they get to a beautiful house on the million mile, on the seaward side of Rhaenys’ Hill, without a fatal accident.

“It’s my brother’s place,” she says, patting Sansa’s knee. “Here, let me-”

She beeps a tiny remote, and the garage door rolls up. Good. Fred’s car is so unbelievably ugly that there’s no hiding it, except _ literally _ hiding it. The other car in the garage is the sort of elegant, classic sedan that Ed loves - a little bit vintage, like the way him and his friends wear their hair.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever met Will,” Marg says, “but I think you’ll like him. He’s right on board with keeping you safe until I can get you on that plane in the morning.”

“If Joff finds out-”

“Will is on board with this, San,” Margaery says firmly. “Now come on - my niece is here too, so don’t mind if the place is littered with school books. She’s got exams this year.”


	6. Day Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Royal funerals have a funny way of slowing time.

_ 08:30 _

So far as Willas can tell, the whole reincarnating thing doesn’t work like _ that. _

There’s always some nutjob standing on the Palace steps, shouting about being Aegon the Conqueror reborn, and there’s a thriving mysticism movement where everyone involved seems to have been someone important in a past life - it rakes in hundreds of thousands of pounds a year, from what he’s read. There are religions, mostly in Essos, that preach a more gentle approach to the whole thing, where instead of a seemingly random and generally quite cruel process, it’s a constant, rolling cycle of regeneration.

But for them, it’s not like that. They don’t tend to remember every detail of their past selves, and the whole business of only some of them remembering those pasts from the off is a pain in the arse. Then there’s the Seers, three or four of them scattered across each return, who are of no bloody use because they can’t see past the life they’re living and even then, it’s spotty. And then there’s the soulmates.

Or, well. There’s sort-of the soulmates. It’s not consistent, because not every relationship outlasts a lifetime, and he sometimes thinks that people like Marg and Robb and even little Robin are better off, to have the chance to find someone new on each turn of the wheel. It’s been so many times and so many lives that Willas can’t imagine not loving Sansa, and that’s brought him near as much grief as it has joy. He wouldn’t trade it, most days, but there are times when he wonders what it might be to build a life with Ty or whoever (or Rodge, because he isn’t blind and he isn’t stupid but he also isn’t able to be the partner Rodge needs, even without Sansa hanging over him). 

There are times. 

But it isn’t as though they can _ study _ it, not without looking like lunatics. They know it sort-of works, even for people who don’t _ know _ . Sansa’s parents, they come together against occasionally overwhelming odds every single time, or Gar and Leo, or even Mum and Dad, who are so well suited for one another that _ of course _ they’re soulmates. There’s enough evidence in its favour that they can’t discount it entirely, even at their most sceptical.

The birthmarks stop that in its tracks.

Willas has a smudgy pale patch on his ribs, sort of blobby and uneven. He always puts his hand over it when he crosses his arms, which he does when he’s nervous or anxious or in bad form. It’s a comfort, just knowing it’s there. Knowing _ she’s _there. 

They grow, become more defined, as the relationship grows. The pattern of softly swelling waves on Margie’s shoulder is showing more colour than Willas expected, and the fantastic stag that stands on Loras’ waist and spreads up his back and side so that it’s peeping, just slightly, around his front, is so black that he usually wears two layers on the court, because some of the older clubs don’t approve of tattoos. Renly’s got a long green tendril of golden rosebuds spilling down across the front of his shoulder, rooted in his shoulderblade, and Ty’s got a star falling down her arm, shoulder to elbow. Some are familiar, seen every time this happens, but some are new - Margie’s never had a Manderly before, but something about Wynafryd seems to suit her better than anyone else has.

Willas has his smudgy pale patch, and he takes comfort in it because it’s a sign that Sansa is out there, somewhere, and that there is still hope.

Sansa is _ here, _somewhere. Upstairs, in one of the bedrooms. He hadn’t seen her so completely shell-shocked in so many turns of the wheel, and it had been difficult not to take her into his arms and offer her succour when Marg walked her through the door. Aster’s cooking breakfast upstairs - pancakes, of course - and Margaery is steaming Willas’ ceremonial robes in the sitting room, and he’s sitting on his bathroom stool so he can have both hands safely free to trim his beard. 

And Sansa is here, somewhere. In his house.

He puts down his clippers and presses his hand to the smudgy patch on his ribs. 

Sansa is _ here. _ This time, maybe, they seem to have _ won. _

_ 09:25 _

Marg’s brother’s house is just… sublime.

Sansa’s always loved the townhouses on the million mile. They’re so elegant, so different to anything she ever saw in the North, and a world away from the brutish grandeur of the High Hill. They’re all wood panelled, each one painted a different soft pastel colour than the next, every single one of them with bright white shutters, and they have the most beautiful view down the hill, across Riverside and the Rush and out onto the Narrow Sea. 

Marg’s brother’s house is the very palest mint green, and it’s a little over halfway down the hill. Sansa can smell the sea when she opens the window. There’s a neatly trimmed white clematis creeper trained up around the stairs to the front door, and then around the door itself, too, framing the stained glass half-moon window. In the little front yard, which is cobbled in round-topped stones in every shade from lavender to russet, there are creamy white and brilliant yellow roses in tasteful stone planters. 

It’s beautiful. Sansa has very similar tastes, even if she’s never been able to show them - Joff’s too much a Lannister to value such subtlety.

Even the room Marg showed her to last night is perfect - plain coving on the ceilings, beautiful mauve and cream striped wallpaper on the wall behind the bed, to match the cream walls and the mauve carpet and the lace-edged bed linens. It’s all so understated and delicate, right down to the rose and jasmine soap in the ensuite, and Sansa wonders how in the world she’s never met Marg’s eldest brother - who is apparently _ an art historian. _ Sansa loves art _ and _history! What was Marg thinking, introducing Sansa to Olive Oil but not to the Right Honourable Willas Tyrell, Earl of Highgarden?

She shouldn’t think of Lady Olenna as Olive Oil. She’ll know, somehow, and Sansa doesn’t have Granny Min on hand to throw at her in self-defence.

“Sansa? I’ve got some clothes for you, sweetheart, if you’re up.”

“Come on in, Marg,” she calls over her shoulder. She’s sitting under the window, leaning on the low, broad sill with one of the beautiful throw pillows from the bed under her backside. Her pyjamas are Marg’s, so they’re too short in the leg and the sleeve, but they’re soft and warm and covered up.

Just because Margaery Tyrell is one of the most popular models currently working in Westeros does not mean that she _ always _ dresses like she’s on the runway. Case in point, she’s wearing raggedy UCKL trackie bottoms and a Harbour Dolphins’ t-shirt that she’s cut the collar out of.

“Az is making pancakes,” she says, dropping a pile of neatly folded clothes onto the bed. “She makes _ the best _ pancakes, if you’re hungry.”

“Have we time?”

“Heaps of it,” Margaery promises, offering Sansa her hands to heave her upright. “So get dressed, and eat yourself sick on Az’s pancakes, and you can fill me in on everything.”

She was crying, sitting under the window. She starts again, and Marg doesn’t say a word beyond “Oh, come here, you.”

Because yes, Sansa is relieved to be away from Joff and from Petyr and from the Targaryens - she hopes Val doesn’t suffer any consequences for helping her, oh, _ gods, _she hadn’t even thought of that - but she knows it won’t be this easy. She owes the Spiders a debt. She owes the Wildlings a debt, because Val never lets them forget who she was before she married Jon. 

And she’s a murderer, too. She slept better last night than she has all week, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t wake up every half an hour to the wet sound of Dad’s head exploding, echoing with the dull thud of the lamp against Petyr’s skull. She won’t ever, ever forget that.

Once Sansa’s calmed down, Marg plaits her hair back from her face. It’s so familiar, so similar to a dozen mornings they spent together before classes. Joff never raped her, but he could be brutal sometimes, in the evenings, when there was no one earby who might help and no one to run to who _ could _ help.

Even Marg, even _ Arya _ \- Sansa wouldn’t bring Joff’s wrath down on their heads. She could tolerate it, and if he was being terrible to her then that spared everyone else from the first, meanest impulses of his cruelty. She knows that poor Tommy’s life was unbearable, until Sansa came along, and while Joff always made certain that she didn’t have a chance to know his brother and sister as well as she might have liked - _ especially _ when Robb took up with Myrcella - she knows that she’s stronger than Tommen. She’s stronger than most people, in a small, only sort-of useful way. 

“Get dressed,” she says, “and follow the smell of food when you get downstairs.”

Sansa gets dressed. She washes her face again, and she follows Margaery downstairs. When she gets there, she follows the smell of food to the big, wide-windowed kitchen looking out over the back garden. It’s got dark blue tiles and bright white cabinets with pearly powder blue trim, and it smells absolutely divine. Margaery is there, waving her hands- no, speaking WSL to the tall, skinny girl with the bang on trend undercut. 

She’s a beautiful girl, with high cheekbones and the narrow Martell face, but bright golden Tyrell eyes and Loras’ smiling mouth. This must be Marg’s niece, Aster.

_ “Morning,” _ Sansa says, which earns her a pleasantly surprised smile. _ “Margaery said pancakes?” _

“Go across to the dining room, San,” Marg says. “We’ll follow on.”

The dining room has more of those beautiful, lofty ceilings, and is panelled in bright, cheery chestnut. It _ should _ be a little dated, a little old-fashioned, but it somehow just feels very classic.

“Oh! Good morning.”

Margaery’s eldest brother is Willas. He’s got those bright Tyrell eyes, behind chic steel-frame glasses, and while last night he was scattered and cozy in worn jeans and a cableknit jumper, this morning he’s immaculate, in a ceremonial suit - high-waisted trousers with a stripe of green satin down the leg, short-cut jacket with more of the green on the cuffs, and a crisp white shirt with pleated front and high, unadorned collar. 

Dad’s suits - Robb’s suits, now - have silver satin trim. Robin’s have sky blue, and Edmure’s robes come in chequey river blue and warm, deep red. For ceremonial occasions, Sansa wears plain white under a silver sash and grey velvet robes, and had she married Joff, she would have kept that same silver sash under Baratheon gold robes.

She will never marry Joff. Something about being away from Petyr’s schemes and _ Jon’s _ schemes leaves her able to find joy in that, now.

But Willas Tyrell’s trim is all green satin, and no doubt there’s a green velvet robe waiting for him to put it on. The King’s funeral is a ceremonial occasion, and everyone will be in full regalia. Margaery said that Arya is still in the city and will attend in Robb’s place, which means that only a handful of the dukes will be in attendance - Robin, of course, since he’s living in the city until he’s finished college and can’t really get out of it, and Lord Tywin, but otherwise it’s all heirs and spares. 

Interesting. Worrying, too. Perhaps the Targaryens are right to strike now, right at the tenderest moment of the turnover, when King Robert is proving unmourned and King Joffrey is known to be unloved.

“Did you sleep well?”

He’s smiling just a little, teeth bright against his dark, trimmed-tight beard, and Sansa doesn’t worry at all. Handsome men have worried her for years, in case it gets back to Joff that she was talking to them, but Margaery would never take her somewhere where she was unsafe, which means, by default, that Margaery’s _ brother _ is safe.

“Better than I have all week,” she assures him. “I can’t thank you enough-”

“You’ve already thanked me enough,” he says firmly, turning from the sideboard to reveal a heavy wooden crutch tucked under his arm. “This is- Well, it’s not nothing, that would discount your terrible time, but it’s the least I can do. Margaery loves you like a sister.”

He looks as though he wants to say more, but he doesn’t.

“Please, Sansa,” he says. “Have a seat.”

“The house is so beautiful,” she says, because it is, and surely he knows it. “The panelling, is it-”

“Original,” he says, settling into the chair at the head of the table with a wince. “Restored - a friend of mine from college turned her expertise into a functioning business, which very few of the rest of us managed. The floors, too, and any stained glass you see is the real deal, too.”

_ 10:07 _

_ “It’s weird,” _ Aster admits. _ “But if this works, Dad can be happy.” _

_ “You think he isn’t happy?” _

_ “He is! But it’s not the same. I think it’s because he knows she’s out there somewhere, so he never settles to anything or anyone else.” _

True enough - she’s a clever girl, their Az. She might be Marg’s favourite person in the world, although Fred’s coming for her throne. 

It is strange, hearing Sansa and Willas’ voices from across the hall. They’re laughing about something - probably some terrible joke that’s only funny to people who read dense, boring books for fun - and it all feels so familiar that Margaery wants to hope.

She wants to. She just doesn’t quite dare.

_ “Come on, you, _ ” she says, nudging her hip to Az’s and hefting the heavier of the two trays. _ “Let’s get this on the table.” _

Aster rolls her eyes, but she takes the other tray and leads the way - conversation falls off, but it kicks right back up once Will puts down his newspaper to talk to Az.

_ “You usually wear your hearing aids when we have guests,” _ he says, which makes Az frown at him. He doesn’t usually draw attention to her hearing aids any more than he would his own glasses, or his own _ hearing aid, _ for that matter, and Marg is tempted to smack him over the head for it. She knows how relieved he is to have Sansa safe, but she is not Awake, and she is not _ his. _ Aster is both, and Aster needs to be his priority even if Sansa does wake up.

“I’ll kill you,” Margaery says, smiling to take the sting out of it for Sansa’s sake, but looking right into Willas’ eyes so he knows to take his head out of the clouds. “Sansa speaks a little sign, so we’re fine.”

He takes the hint, and squeezes Az’s hand when she sits down beside him. 

_ “Where’s Mum?” _ Az asks, which is a fair question. Tyene came in late last night, sneaking in so quietly that Margaery only heard her because her bedroom is right above the front door, and she was gone before any of them were up this morning. From what little Sansa told them last night, that has Margaery on edge - Tyene _ is _ a Martell, after all.

_ “Your granddad arrived late last night for the funeral,” _ Will says, _ “so she picked him up from the airport, and then she went to make sure he wears his robes.” _

They start bickering - Az loves her grandfathers more or less equally, but Prince Oberyn is far, _ far _ more exciting than Dad - and Sansa listens, squinting a little whenever she can’t follow what they’re saying. Margaery makes her breakfast, and takes most of the raspberries, and she makes Az’s breakfast too. 

“Wait, where’s mine?” Willas asks when Marg leans across him to put down Az’s plate. “How come she gets it and I don’t?”

“_ You’re a grown up, big brother, _ ” Margaery reminds him. “ _ Az is a baby, and she’s going to sneak away once she’s done eating.” _

They agreed to this, so that Az doesn’t have to hear all that Sansa might have to say. They have to question her, much as Marg wishes they didn’t, because while they’ve pieced together some of what’s gone on this week there’s still some blanks that need to be filled in.

If nothing else - is there a chance Joffrey might be Awake? And if he is, how much danger are they in?

They eat. It’s quiet, because Az is an angel who’s eating quickly to give them a decent chance to talk to Sansa before Will has to go to the funeral, and then Az kisses Will’s cheek and Marg’s hair, and she smiles at Sansa, and she goes.

“So,” Sansa says. “So, where do I start?”

_ 11:23 _

Willas excuses himself to finish dressing once Sansa’s finished telling her story, and he takes advantage of the privacy afforded by being downstairs to be sick without being overheard.

Aster is in his bedroom when he finally feels as though he’s brushed the taste of sick off his teeth, fiddling with her fingers the way Garlan bites his lip. She’s anxious, which makes him feel sick all over - he was a prat to her, upstairs, and she deserves an apology.

_ “Come here, you, _ ” he says, and she does. He holds on tight, kissing her hair over and over. When he lets her go, he says _ “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” _

She shrugs. He never loses his temper with her, but he can be thoughtless - it’s just not usually Az who bears the brunt of that.

_ “She doesn’t seem like herself,” _ is all Aster says. _ “And you need to calm down. You’ll scare her.” _

_ “Coming on a bit strong, am I?” _

_ “She’s not the Sansa you know, Dad. You need to acknowledge that.” _

Easier said than done, of course, but if Aster thinks that’s what he should work on, he’ll work on it.

_ “If you want,” _ he says, _ “we can go out for dinner tonight. Just us. I’ve been absolutely shit since you arrived.” _

_ “You have,” _ she agrees, but she’s smiling just enough to soften it. _ “But you can improve. You always do.” _

_ 13:20 _

Arya’s too far away to say a word to Tyrell without being overheard, and in the high grey suede shoes Sansa bought for her for her last birthday, she doesn’t trust herself not to topple sideways if she tries to lean around Edmure to get his attention.

She kicks Edmure instead.

“Kick me one more time and I’ll knock you clean on your arse,” he warns her. “Don’t do anything rash, Arya. Not now.”

_ Rash _ would be drawing any more attention to herself than she already has simply for being here - technically, they as a family were exempt from attending the King’s funeral, because they’re in their mourning week for Dad, but she and Robb agreed that it was best not to risk King Turd taking insult. It had taken three days and a vision from Bran to convince Mum, and even then, she’d refused to allow it unless Edmure swore up, down, and sideways to keep an eye on Arya.

She’s glad of him now. Even when Joffrey is pretending to be a grieving son, Cersei has no interest in playing the grieving widow. She’s staring down that imperious nose of hers like she owns the place, because she probably thinks she does. She probably thinks she has some control over Joffrey, the poor fool.

Tommen and Myrcella are on the next step down of the dais behind the bier, almost invisible behind the King’s bulk and all the flowers and ornaments. Myrcella’s circlet is bright with yellow topaz, Tommen’s bright against his pale blonde curls, and neither one of them is taking their eyes off the King’s remains. 

Probably because if they do, there’s no avoiding Stannis Baratheon.

Arya doesn’t like Stannis - Shireen is another story, because Shireen is one of the loveliest people in the world. Shireen’s father, however, is a severe, cold, mannerless man who thinks himself above everyone else in the court less because he’s the King’s brother and more because of stupid moral superiority. He’s staring at Cella and Tommy like he wants them to join his brother on the bier, and Joffrey and Cersei too, which probably means he knows the truth.

Arya prays - mostly to the old gods and the Crone, because the others have always seemed a bit too clean-cut for her preference - that he has the sense not to launch into a tirade about Cersei’s betrayal during the funeral. Knowing Stannis, though, nothing is certain.

Robin is on Arya’s other side, skinny as a lat but taller than any of Arya’s brothers except Rickon. He looks very well in his sky-blue robes, and Arya offers another prayer that Mum won’t insist she wears heels tomorrow, too.

“Stannis looks fit to burst,” Robin murmurs, because it’s true.

The way they’re arranged - Robin, Arya, Ed, and Rodge Greyjoy on this side, Stannis, Tyrell, Prince Oberyn and Tywin Lannister on the other, and Cersei Lannister and her children standing at the King’s head - would be funny, in other circumstances, because there’s been a lot of talk recently about the north-south divide within the country. In any other circumstances, Ed would be making all kinds of witty comments about how the lush valleys of the Westerlands and the fertile plains of the Reach make their people snobby, and he’d be right to do just that. 

But these are not other circumstances. This is the funeral of a King of dubious legitimacy, whose direct heirs are _ also _ of dubious legitimacy, and everyone who knows that there will be a challenge to this regime looks on edge. Arya certainly is, although part of that is the shoes. She might feel a little better if she had a first hand account of how Sansa is fairing, though.

_ 13:40 _

The High Septon is droning on, that terrible nasaly voice of his bouncing off the crystal windows, and Tommy is starting to sweat. Renly can see it where his golden robes rest against the back of his neck. He’s probably burning up under Stannis’ furious stare, which isn’t even slightly fair - that temper should be reserved entirely for Cersei and Robert.

Dear Joffie doesn’t have a very nice reputation, so there’s no sense of optimism mixed in with the surprisingly sincere grief on the faces Renly recognises in the pews. Robert was a generally jovial sort, of course, but not the sort to make anything like true friends.

Save Ned Stark, of course, and Jon Arryn, gods rest them both.

But yes, Joffrey isn’t the sort of young King who’ll inspire trust and confidence as Robert had, after the coup. If only he didn’t have to contend with all those nasty rumours about the suspicious nature of his father’s death, and the terrible publicity of his mother refusing to allow the state coroner to autopsy Robert’s body.

Whoever leaked such a story had done _ dreadful _ harm to Cersei’s image. Shame.

_ 14:01 _

Robin is seated right in front of Prince Oberyn for the ceremony, for some reason, and nearly jumps out of his skin when he gets a tap on the shoulder.

“Please pass on my niece’s apologies to your cousin when next you see her,” he whispers. No one will overhear, not during the choral prayers, but it still feels terribly risky to be saying something like this so close to so many Lannisters. “She meant no harm, but understands that she caused it regardless.”

“Your Highness-”

“Your Grace,” Prince Oberyn says, very softly, “please do not play stupid, and please do not emulate your father. He thought us wild and soft, and we are neither - my niece least of all.”

“Then perhaps she ought to be Queen,” Robin dares, which earns him a hearty clap on the shoulder - muffled, mercifully, by the thick velvet of his ceremonial robes.

“What a clever boy you are,” Prince Oberyn says. “I never would have expected such good sense from someone so… Andalish.”

_ 14:20 _

“We’ll be well clear of the city by the time they leave the sept,” Marg assures her. Knowing the way Margaery drives, Sansa believes her - what she doubts is that they’ll be clear of the city _ unseen. _ Even if the Lannisters didn’t have eyes everywhere, Lord Varys does, and she worries how Princess Rhaenys will repay Sansa for spurning her shelter.

“Sansa,” Margaery says. “Calm down.”

She is calm, sort of. She feels as though she’s gone right through worrying and into some sort of catastrophic relief, where no matter how bad things get, they can’t shake her. She’s on edge _ because _ things are going well, if anything.

The airport is out the Goldroad, Exit 3 off the M3 and follow the signs, and you’re there.

But they aren’t going to the airport. They’re going to a private airfield, one co-owned by the seven ducal families and the Martells. There’s no passport checks, because no one can get in or out without a special pass, and those passes are strictly limited to just members of the families. 

Which means that the royal family can’t get in. 

There are a few places like this dotted around the country - the Old Keep in Winterfell is off-limits to the Crown, and she remembers Margaery saying something about the Throne Room in Highgarden, and a good two-thirds of the Eyrie are strictly forbidden to anyone who doesn’t have the Duke of Arryn’s permission to be there - but this one is unique for being shared. Sansa’s got the Starks and the Tullys and the Arryns on side for sure, and she doesn’t think Lord Mace has ever denied Marg anything, but the Martells aren’t going to look kindly on her fleeing Princess Rhaenys, and surely the Lannisters and Baratheons would want her caught - Lord Tywin to avoid a scandal, if Joff’s abuse ever came to light, and Lord Stannis so she can face justice for Petyr’s death. 

Mother’s mercy. What a _ mess. _

“I had Mum arrange for a few bits and pieces,” Marg says. “She had them sent over from the house-”

So casual, as though the Tyrells city residence isn’t almost as big as the palace and twice as lovely.

“-so you can have a proper wash and change into clothes that fit you properly. I’ll be at the house if you need anything else, so don’t hesitate to call, alright?”

That does sound nice. If only she didn’t feel sick to her stomach, waiting for the sword to fall.

_ 15:25 _

“Alright,” Arya says, leaning on both Robin and Ed’s shoulders to ease those bloody shoes of hers. “I’m off. Make excuses for me if anyone asks.”

“How’s _ She has another funeral tomorrow _ for an excuse?” Robin asks, winding his arm around her waist to steady her. Edmure’s trying to have a conversation with Will from across the room, without it being painfully obvious that they _ are _having a conversation, so his hands are full.

“Marg texted to say she’s left the airfield,” Edmure murmurs, which stops Arya and Robin’s bickering. “San’s having a wash and a change before the flight.”

“I’ll be with her in less than an hour,” Arya says. “Alright, I’m really gone - text me if you hear anything bad.”

“Don’t text and drive,” Robin says, giving her a visible squeeze before letting her go. “And tell Sansa we love her.”

“You never say you love _ me!” _

But she’s smiling as she slips into the crowd.

“Alright,” Edmure says. “Come on, let’s find my mob.”

Roslin has her striped blue-and-grey sash under her chequy robes, and bless her if the unfortunate combination doesn’t look clownish even on her, the loveliest woman in Westeros. The kids are, somehow, still neat and tidy - Coren’s easier to manage, because he’s a baby in a chequy blanket, but Bethany is _ exactly _like Arya was at that age. 

A menace. 

A menace with Roslin’s smile, and a knack for getting glitter all over every item of clothing Edmure owns.

“Hello, silverfish,” he says, sweeping her up and praying he got all the glitter off when he washed her hands before they left the house. “Kisses?”

“Kisses for _ Robin,” _ she says, which delights poor Robin until he realises he’s got two very slightly damp handprints on his face now, and that they’re very slightly twinkly. “And one kiss for you, Daddy.”

“And what about me?”

_ “Will!” _

Bethany knows better than to throw herself at Will the way she would Robb or Renly, but she still seizes him in a headlock until she’s satisfied that he’s had enough kisses. Edmure takes advantage of her distraction to steal some kisses from Roslin and Coren.

“I’ll never understand how a six year old can be so bloody strong,” Robin says, but he still puts out his arms to take Bethany. She goes gleefully, the little traitor. “All good, Willas?”

“Seems so, thank the gods,” Will says, but his prayer beads are running a mile a minute through his free hand. He does that whenever he’s anxious or upset, has done since they were kids, and it always worries Edmure to see it. “Arya got away alright?”

“Seems so.”

Renly arrives out of absolutely nowhere, sneaking up on Roslin and Coren in just the right way to make them both scream - except he charms them into _ not _screaming, the slick bastard, and somehow has Ros under his arm and Coren in the crook of his elbow before either of them can get upset by the change.

“Poor Ed,” Renly says. “Whole family prefers the arms of another.”

“Cad,” Roslin says, and she moves to take Edmure’s hand. That’s better. “Don’t you have more important places to be? Taking sympathies, that sort of thing?”

“Apparently not,” Renly says. “Seems that the tradition is for only the next eldest sibling to take sympathies, if there’s spouse and spawn. Stannis has to shake hands and make nice for now, so here I am.”

“Oh, Renly,” Roslin sighs, patting his arm. “I wish this wasn’t all so… political. For your sake.”

“Believe me, Ros,” he says. “I much prefer to do whatever mourning needs doing behind closed doors - this wouldn’t suit me one bit.”

That’s probably true. Renly’s always been very careful about how much of himself he shares with the public, probably because he was storing up as much good credit with the masses as he could before coming out. That had gone better than anyone could have hoped, except with his kingly brother, and it had played a large role in the rearrangement of the Crown titles - Robert _ had _ named Stannis Duke of Blackwater, intending to have the capital surrounded by not one Baratheon duchy but two, but Renly had been trying to abdicate Storm’s End to Stannis since he was fifteen. His being gay was what had convinced Robert to allow it, and so the royal duchy was returned to the Prince of Dragonstone, and sweet little Joffrey gained an island.

“So…?” Renly says, bouncing a little and teasing Coren, tugging at his little nose. He’s a jolly baby, and Renly’s a jolly man, so they get along famously. “Any news?”

“All seems to be moving as expected,” Will says, prayer beads still moving in sharp clicks. “_ Seems.” _

_ 16:02 _

Sansa feels properly clean for the first time since Dad’s death.

_ Murder. _

Well, yes. His murder, because someone shot him in the head, and shooting all of his guards made it quite clear that they did it on purpose. So there’s no need for the little voice to correct her, really. 

She does feel clean, though. Lady Alerie sent clothes that Sansa left behind the last time her and Margaery used the Tyrells’ house after a night out, so she’s dressed the way she _ likes _to dress, in soft, baggy-bum jeans and a soft jumper and her comfy old runners. Her hair smells like flowers, which is what she likes, and she’s got her perfume. She feels like herself. She feels calmer than she has all week.

Which is why she doesn’t scream when the passenger lounge’s automatic doors quietly _ swoosh _ open to reveal not Arya, complaining that her feet hurt because of the shoes Sansa bought her for her birthday last, because she’ll definitely be wearing them - she doesn’t own any other heels. 

Instead of her sister, and confirmation that she’s on her way home, Sansa get Joff. She gets Joff, and she gets Joff’s two most loyal goons.

“I would have expected you to still be taking sympathies,” she says, standing up and wiping her hands on her jeans. She’s been a mess of nerves all day, but not now. Now, at least, she knows what’s coming. “Small crowd?”

“A King need not attending his predecessor’s funeral at all,” Joff says, looking very handsome indeed in his mourning blacks, under his golden robes and chains. She wants to claw his handsome face raw, but that would achieve nothing except to make him angrier. “I stayed for the ceremony. Ducked out as soon as Renly and your uncle looked away.”

“Subtle. I didn’t expect that of you.”

“I’m full of surprises,” he says. His hands are warm through her jumper when he takes her by the shoulders. His grip is firm - never hard. Joff’s too lazy to hurt her for the sake of it, and too mean not to punish every tiny infraction. It’s a strange balance, but she’s gotten used to it. 

This past week is far from a _ tiny _ infraction.

“I’m sorry Baelish got to you, sweetheart,” he says, and she’d almost forgotten how wonderful a liar he is. His brilliantly green eyes look almost sincere. “That was never part of the plan. Your father wasn’t supposed to die until he’d dropped you off.”

“... Joff-”

“Change is coming, Sansa,” he says. “You had to see that your father would get in my way. He and Jon Arryn held my father back for decades. I have plans, Sansa. Plans that don’t involve Parliament stymying me at every turn.”

“You murdered my _ father- _”

“Technically, it was Baelish,” Joff says, drawing her in and fitting her under his chin. He’s so tall. She’d sort of forgotten that, too. “But I’m not sorry it happened, and it did happen with my go-ahead. As I say, you weren’t supposed to be affected - I wanted you to see, because that would improve the optics, but that debacle in Ormund Square? No. That wasn’t what I wanted at all. I’m sorry for that, and I’m sorry for whatever Baelish did to you.”

Does Joff think Petyr raped her? Probably - and that means that his sorrow over Petyr squirelling her away is genuine, because he truly, completely hates sexual violence. 

_ Has he touched you yet? _ Sansa has seen Cersei on the mornings after Robert visited her during the night. Joff adores his mother, so maybe that one single hard limit of his isn’t so surprising.

“Come along now, sweetheart,” he says. “We have an errand to run, and then we have to balance your ledger. If you’re good, I’ll fly you to Winterfell first thing in the morning.”

_ If you’re good. _That means if she doesn’t need medical attention after her punishment, usually, but he has to know that if she gets to Winterfell now she’ll never leave it again. That means that she’s going to miss Dad’s funeral.

_ Again. _

And it might very well mean he’s so angry, under the control and the delusion and the gentle words, that she won’t need medical attention at all. She’s been missing for a week already - if she’s never found, who’s going to say a word?

_ 16:41 _

“The whole _ point _ of this place is that you can refuse entry to the King!” Arya shouts, shaking the chief of security by the lapels. “How did he get in?! Where did they _ go?!” _

“I’m sorry, Lady Arya, I truly am!” the poor man says, holding her by the wrists to stop her from shaking him again. “But he had the Earl of Lannisport’s tags-”

“The _ fucking- _ Alright, alright. I need to see the footage. I need to see everything you have. Did you record the registration plates? Well, I’ll need those, too. I need _ everything. _”

She marches on ahead of him into the management office, doing an admirable job in her stupid high shoes, and takes out her phone.

“Neddie? Arya. Please tell me you’re near a powerful Wifi connection.”

_ “I’m still in the sept, what’s wrong?” _

“Get out of the fucking sept, Edric, and get to a powerful Wifi connection,” she says, “because my sister has disappeared with Joffrey fucking Baratheon.”

_ 16:53 _

No one noticed the change of guards in the palace. Who ever looks at a guard’s face? They’re neatly dressed men of roughly similar build, with the same short haircut, and the same black suits and white shirts.

No one noticed that these guards were wearing scarlet ties instead of crimson, but it’s such an easy thing to miss.

_ 17:11 _

“Now don’t hit the roof,” Robb says, having dragged Mum into the off-limits-to-guests drawing room, where hopefully no one will hear her hitting the roof. “But Arya’s just been on, and there’s been a hiccup.”

“Robb-”

“Someone sold us out,” he says, “and Joffrey has Sansa.”

Mum, as predicted, hits the roof. Robb can’t say he blames her.

_ 17:38 _

Willas and Aster are deciding where to go for dinner when his phone starts ringing. 

“Ty? Whatever-”

_ “I need you to know that I didn’t know anything about it,” _ she says. _ “But I also need you to come up to the palace first thing in the morning, so you can swear in on your father’s behalf.” _

“What in the world is going on?”

_ “I set up a news feed on your phone specifically for times like this, Will!” _ she snaps. _ “Just be here! Ten o’clock sharp!” _

True enough, when he hangs up he has half a dozen news alerts.

“Oh, gods preserve us,” he says, and then, to Aster, “_ I think we might order in tonight, Az.” _

** _INSIDE JOB? PALACE TAKEN DURING ROYAL FUNERAL_ **.

“_ Well,” _ Az says. “ _ That’s not ideal, is it?” _

_ 17:57 _

“Neddie, if you don’t-”

_ “I’m working as fast as I can, Arya,” _ he says, sharp as he only gets when he’s working. _ “Trys and I have been up to our oxters all day, I don’t need you giving me shit when I’m already six rounds of paracetamol deep, alright?” _

Up to their oxters in a fucking _ coup _ is where they’ve been, but she isn’t going to say that. If it gets Joffrey off the throne, it’s not entirely a bad thing. Probably.

_ “It’s a restoration, before you say it,” _ he says. _ “We looked up the legality of it - it’s classed as a restoration, because so far it’s been successfull.” _

“Is this why your famously gifted detecting minds have failed me so completely in finding Sansa this week?” she asks. “Because it seems to me as though the Spiders and the Vipers are working together, but _ you two _made it seem as though the Spiders weren’t to be trusted, and that we had no way of possibly working with them-”

_ “Sometimes, Arya, the picture is bigger than you can see,” _ he says. _ “We knew your sister was safe-” _

“No she fucking was _ not, _you smug, self-righteous little-”

_ “Not helping Arya. You need to get back into the city - they’re after coming in Lionsgate Street, probably heading for the Dragonstone Ferry. Get on it.” _

“Shouldn’t you be selling them out to _ your _side?”

Jon’s Val has texted twice, and it’s not until Arya gets a moment to check the texts, while Neddie’s busily tapping away at his tablet (sound on, so she can hear it through the phone, the wankbag), that she realises why the Targaryens were so keen on keeping a close eye on Sansa.

“If you give Sansa to the Targaryens to be married off to Aegon,” Arya says, right on the verge of reaching through the phone to strangle Neddie, “then I will personally see your shiny new regime brought to its knees, Edric. Make that _ well _fucking known.”

_ 18:19 _

_ “Get upstairs,” _ Willas says, one eye still on his phone. _ “Get into the crawl space, turn off the vibrate on your phone, and text Margaery and Loras. Keep texting them and Renly and Rodge and anyone else whose number you have until someone comes and lets you out.” _

_ “But Dad-” _

“Look at me, Aster,” he says, signing but also speaking aloud to emphasise his point - she can hear a bit, with her hearing aids in, but it’s so much easier for her to sign. That’s how she knows he’s serious - he and Ty make a point of only speaking aloud to her when it’s really, really serious. “You need to hide. Lyria’s Neddie thinks some dangerous people are coming here-”

_ “Then you hide too!” _

_ “Won’t work, kiddo,” _ he says, shrugging helplessly. _ “You know that. Please, Az. Hide. For me.” _

She looks upset. Willas hates upsetting Aster more than he hates anything else in the world, but this is the one time he doesn’t feel even a little guilty for it. If Az can get into the crawl space, she’ll be safe. 

The crawl space is the panic room Ty insisted he install after the first time some unhappy Ghiscari art dealers had chased him home when he discovered that the “newly discovered” First Tokari Period marbles they had tried to sell to him were actually less “newly discovered” and more “recently stolen” from the Imperial Museum of Astapor. The IMA hadn’t been particularly thrilled to have them back, and he’d discovered why when an envelope of surveillance photographs were delivered by hand to his house. They’d been arrested and the whole thing had died off, but it had been a scary few months. Hence the increased security measures, and the panic room.

Crawl space sounds less threatening than panic room, though.

“_ Please.” _

She wraps herself tight around him for a long, long moment, and he holds on as hard as he can. 

_ “Go, sweetheart,” _ he says. _ “Now - hurry.” _

_ 18:20 _

“If he is going to Willas’ house,” Tyene says, with the front of Aegon’s shirt balled up in her fist, “then my daughter is in danger. So you are _ going _to send someone-”

“Put him down, Ty,” Arianne says, tugging on her wrist. “Your father is gone-”

“If Joffrey fucking Baratheon is on his way to Willas’ house,” Tyene says, grabbing Arianne’s beautiful red silk dress with her free hand so she has a cousin to her right _ and _ a cousin to her left, both being unhelpful. “If he gets there unmolested, and harms a _ single hair _ on my Aster’s head, I’ll string you up by your toes, Aegon.”

“I’ve dispatched agents,” Rhaenys says, putting her hands firm on Tyene’s shoulders. “For your sake, and for Arya Stark’s. She seems to think we want to leave her sister to her fate, and I want everyone to know that _ that _ is not how we do business. Not anymore.”

The crown would have sat very heavy on Aegon’s head - he’s smart and sharp, and has confidence enough for ten men, but he’s not strong in the right way. Rhaenys is level and smooth, though, and she remembers what it was like after her grandfather was deposed. She remembers their father, and that’s made her _ hungry _ for this. She’ll make an excellent Queen, once Parliament accepts her.

_ 18:28 _

Az texted down three and a half minutes ago to assure him that she was in the crawl space. He deleted the text, just in case, and put his phone onto the little knick-knack shelf beside the kitchen, recording sound.

Then he sat down at the table to wait. Trys texted him, too. Joffrey Baratheon should be here any minute, with Sansa, and with two of his goons - the Hound, if Willas is any judge, because Sandor Clegane is never bright enough to get away from Joffrey Baratheon until it’s too late for it to mean anything, and probably Meryn Trant, because Meryn Trant enjoys the suffering of others.

And Sansa. If the gods are merciful, Joffrey will consider punishing Willas enough, and he’ll let Sansa go. 

The gods are _ never _merciful.

_ 18:30 _

“What are we doing here?”

Willas Tyrell’s beautiful pale green house looks deserted, aside from the light showing through the servants’ door. He can’t manage the stairs to the stained-glass panelled front door, he told Sansa just this morning at breakfast, so he had the servants’ door refitted with a similarly beautiful lunette glazed with golden Highgarden roses against a deep green field. 

It’s after six - it has to be, for the sun to have set so far - and the downstairs lights are on. Is Marg’s niece still here? Oh, gods, she’s only a _ kid, _ younger than Rickon! She can’t be here - it’s bad enough that _ he’s _ here!

“I did tell you that we had some errands to run, sweetheart,” Joff reminds her. “Now get out of the car.”

“Joff, please-”

“Get out of the car, Sansa,” he says. “Don’t make things any worse than they have to be.”

She gets out of the car. Sandor and Trant do as well, and then Joff. 

“These jeans,” he says. “We’ll get rid of these, won’t we?”

Of all the things to complain about right now!

Trant knocks on the door - the servants’ door, with its beautiful lunette window, between the planters with the bright white roses. Sansa prays that no one answers.

But Margaery’s brother does. He opens the door, looking resigned.

“I don’t suppose you’ve heard the news?” he asks, taking off his glasses and putting them down on the little sidetable inside the door. “From the Hill?”

“My father has been dead a week, Tyrell,” Joff sneers, which makes Willas smile a little. He looks like Loras, sort of, the way Loras looks when he sees someone slice a serve during a tight match. 

“True,” he agrees. “But Parliament is sitting right now to accept Rhaenys Targaryen as Queen, so where does that leave you?”

_ 18:32 _

“We’re fifteen minutes out,” Arya says, thankful beyond reason for Alla - Alla, who met her at the first traffic blockade, intended to keep the Lannisters _ in _ and their allies _ out _, with a car and her good boots - and her freakish stunt driving capabilities, which are new and fascinating to Arya. “You?”

_ “Less than,” _ Loras Tyrell says, sounding right about as frantic as Arya feels. “ _ That’s if Renly puts his fucking foot down-” _

“Drive now, argue later,” Arya suggests. “And the others?”

_ “Greyjoys grabbed Marg and are on their way there,” _ Loras says. _ “They’ll be maybe five minutes behind us, and Ty says her father is on his way with Quent and some of her sisters.” _

Useful. Obara Martell is terrifying, always. Oberyn even more so.

_ “Get there A-S-A-P,” _ Loras advises. _ “Or else there won’t be much of Joffrey left.” _

_ 18:34 _

“When we get there,” Asha says, leaning over the centre console to look Marg hard in the eye, “stay back.”

“Like absolute _ hells _I will!” Margaery snaps. “He’s my brother! I’m-”

“Unarmed,” Asha points out. “Believe me, Miss Margaery - that’s not something Rodrik and I have to worry about.”

_ 18:39 _

“Lord Littlefinger told me the _ funniest _story,” Joff says, his arm loose around Sansa’s waist and his hand firm around her throat. “He seemed to think I’d believe that Sansa wanted to fuck him. Can you believe that? Imagine thinking that a woman of this calibre would want anything to do with a worm like him.”

One of the things that terrifies Sansa most about Joffrey is that she thinks he might actually love her, as best he’s able. To think that he can do all he does to her to someone he routinely hails as _ the best of women _ to anyone who’ll listen is genuinely bone-chilling.

“Now I knew better than that,” Joffrey says, tipping her head back slightly and waiting until she looks sideways, to catch his eye. “I know Sansa better than anyone else in the world, don’t I, sweetheart? Yes, I do. I knew she wouldn’t want anything to do with Baelish unless he forced the issue. I got so, so angry when he came to me - I almost killed him, my darling. Have I told you that? I lost my temper with him, and I added a nice little collection to the nasty bump you left on his head.”

Petyr’s _ alive. _Sansa isn’t a murderer! She didn’t- oh, gods be good, she’d dance for joy at that news if it didn’t amount to no good at all, since Joff has her.

“Any man who’d force a woman doesn’t _ deserve _ a woman,” Joff says, gaze fixed on hers. “Especially not a woman like you.”

He turns her head a little further, as if expecting a kiss, but she remains as placid as she can. That angers him - everything will anger him, for the next good long while - but in this, if nothing else, he’s true to his word. He won’t force even a kiss on her, if she doesn’t want it.

“You, though,” he says, turning to look at Willas, where he’s pinned into a chair with Sandor’s hands and Trant’s gun holding him in place. “You’re another story, aren’t you, Tyrell?”

Joffrey’s always hated all their peers - well, peers in terms of rank, at least. Robb and Robin, Edmure and Renly, any Martell or Greyjoy or Tyrell who crossed his path, he’s had a knife in all of them. Whether it’s jealousy or resentment or what, Sansa’s never known, but it’s persistent and it’s infuriating and right now, it might cost Margaery her eldest brother.

“I know all about you,” Joff says, his arm tightening around Sansa’s waist. “All about all your _ studying, _ and your beautiful collection of classical art, and the way you’re looking at my fiancée. The way you _ think _about her.”

Sansa can all but hear something click into place for Willas, and he sighs. 

“You’re awake, then.”

“I am,” Joff says, as though that statement made any sense whatsoever. “And you’re going to do me the favour of waking her up - do it quickly, and we’ll go easy on you.”

_ 18:43 _

“Renly, if Trant is with Joffrey-”

“We’ll get there, Loras. I promise. We’re not losing him this time.”

_ 18:43 _

“Fucking _ roadworks!” _ Rodge fumes. “In fucking _ Waterside!” _

_ 18:43 _

“If you break my jaw,” Willas says, already a little slurred - he’s bitten his tongue at least three times. “How am I supposed to wake her up?”

_ 18:44 _

“We’re five minutes away, tops,” Arya says. “Where’s your uncle?”

_ “He should be there by now,” _ Trys promises. _ “Ned and me aren’t far behind. Ty’s with us.” _

_ 18:45 _

“Look at me, Sansa,” Willas says, and she almost does. She’s crying, struggling against Joffrey and so out of her mind with guilt that he can see it plain on her face. But this isn’t her fault. 

It’s never, ever her fault.

“Sansa,” he says again, once he’s stopped coughing. Trant’s got a mean right arm, made meaner by the heavy knuckledusters he loves, and Clegane’s got a kick like a mule even without the steel toecaps. “_ Look at me.” _

She does, this time.

“This is not your fault,” he says, as clearly as he can. “Not your father’s death, and not this. None of this is your fault.”

Her eyes - they look so blue when they’re red with crying - cloud over for a moment, and then snap suddenly, brilliantly clear.

Clegane’s knee catches Willas’ jaw before he can see anything more.

_ 18:46 _

A shiny black car with Dornish plates pulls up right as Renly does, and Loras is out of the car before anyone else has even got their seatbelts off - Oberyn Martell isn’t far behind him, though, and he’s got a bullet in Meryn Trant before Renly’s even in the house.

Loras has Sandor Clegane on the ground, stronger even than that particular beast in his blind and absolute fury, and Renly does what he can. He seizes Joffrey by the short hair at his nape and drags him, squealing, away from Sansa Stark.

_ 18:48 _

Margaery goes to Willas, because Sansa might be her very dearest friend, but she’s noisily alive and Willas looks a touch dead.

“He’s still with us,” Loras says, which means she must look just as panicked as she feels. “Ambulances are on their way - come here, M. C’mere.”

She comes here, and huddles under Loras’ arm, on their knees beside Willas. They’ll have to try and wake Garlan now, because if they don’t, he’ll never forgive them for keeping all this intrigue and messing around from him, not when it ended with Willas like this.

A gun cocks, and Asha Greyjoy sighs.

“If you kill him, big brother,” she says, “Pyke goes to Maron.”

Rodrik Greyjoy lowers his gun. Gods be good, but they really _ are _ mad.

_ 18:49 _

Rodge Greyjoy has a gun pointed at shithead when Arya crashes into Tyrell’s beautiful dining room, but that’s unimportant. What’s important is Sansa, crying noisily, and very much not within reach of shithead.

“You look _ awful,” _ Arya says, and then she holds out her arms so Sansa can fall into them. “Thank the gods you’re alright, Sanny, we’ve been so worried.”

Sansa keeps crying, her fingers digging hard into Arya’s back.

“Ambulances are on their way,” Loras Tyrell says, and it’s only then that Arya notices Tyrell himself, bloodied and unconscious on the floor. 

Well, at least he’s alive - Rodge Greyjoy wouldn’t have let shithead live, otherwise.

_ 18:52 _

Ty’s just arriving with Neddie and Trys when Prince Oberyn arrives down from upstairs with Azzie on his back.

It looks absurd. Azzie’s got that gangly Tyrell build, and Prince Oberyn is not a tall man. But he’s piggybacking her, and she’s hiding her face against his shoulder as if she’s afraid of what she might see. 

Given she hasn’t been able to hear anything since Will sent her upstairs, maybe that’s to be expected.

Ty doesn’t even give Prince Oberyn a chance to put Azzie down before she’s gathering them up, and he doesn’t object. Azzie unlocks one arm from around her grandfather’s neck to wrap it around her mother’s. 

“Hey,” Renly says, knocking on the top of her head with his knuckles. _ “He’s okay. We’ll make sure of it.” _

_ 19:09 _

“Only one person in the ambulance with each of them,” the very friendly paramedic says, barring entry to Loras once Margaery’s climbed aboard. “I’m sorry, Mr. Tyrell, but there’s limited space in these things.”

Sansa’s got her sister with her, and she’s still in hysterics - unhurt, though, by the looks of things. That’s good. That’s unexpected, truth be told, because Joffrey usually can’t help but hurt her. _ He’s _in the back of a cop van, along with his brutes, and for now, that’s enough.

It has to be. She needs a small victory to balance against how worryingly unresponsive Willas has been. 

_ 20:15 _

“Mum? It’s Arya. Someone here who wants to talk to you.”

Sansa’s hands are shaking when she reaches out for the phone.

“Hi Mum,” she says, starting to cry _ again _. Arya can’t even be mad at her for being wet, just this once. “Are you okay?”

They pull into the airfield without any fuss. The fuss was twenty minutes ago, when Sansa was ready to stab a doctor for trying to stop her going home. Now, Sansa’s shaky but quiet, and Arya rubs her back in slow circles until it’s time to get out of the car.

The others are on the plane already - Myrcella, who’s coming along as a thanks to Robb from for braving Mum with only Bran and Ricky for help, and Jeynie and Theon, who’ve been kept up to date on everything by Asha, who Arya sort of forgot is Theon’s sister, Ed and Ros and the kiddos, and Uncle Oswell, _ Mum’s _ granduncle, who’s old and mean and looks very, very guilty - Granny would be here too, except she lost her patience and drove all the way to Winterfell in the Banana Mobile yesterday. Sansa lingers on the tarmac, saying a long goodbye to Mum, and she doesn’t flinch when Arya pushes gently on the small of her back to urge her up the steps.

She doesn’t flinch when Bethany launches herself at Sansa’s knees, either, or when Jeynie and Theon push her down into the seat between them, but she does flinch a little when Uncle Oswell tries to talk to her.

Edmure has better luck, and Coren best of all, of the men. Coren’s a perfect baby, though, so that’s only to be expected. 

“Sansa,” Bethany says, leaning her chin on Sansa’s knee and holding onto her legs during take off. “Why is everyone sad?”

Roslin buries her face in her hands. Unfortunately for everyone, Bethany inherited Edmure’s tact, which is to say _ none. _

_ 20:30 _

Willas wakes up. That feels unexpected.

Aster is curled up in a big chair next to his bed, with her physics notebook balanced on her knees. Every part of Willas feels bruised, but so long as they didn’t get near Az, so long as she was safe in the crawl space, he doesn’t really mind. 

He reaches out for her, and can’t quite sit up to reach. She sees, though, and leans forward and tangles her fingers through his.

“I’m okay,” she says, out loud, so she doesn’t need to let go of his hand.


	7. Day Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Homecomings, hard conversations, and hope.
> 
> Maybe even a happy ending.

Sansa hasn’t woken up in her room in Winterfell in a long time, so for a moment, it doesn’t feel entirely real.

It was snowing when they landed - not unusual, this far north, and the pilot is more than capable of dealing with it - and there’s a little slope of powder leaning against Sansa’s window. Her windowsill is hidden under a windowbox, overflowing with hardy winter flowers, and those are peeking bravely through the snow.

Jeyne, curled up on the daybed, snuffles in her sleep. It feels like their sleepovers, when Sansa came home from Duskendale on the weekends and Vayon and Marya let Jeyne stay Friday and Saturday nights. Those sleepovers had thinned out some when Joffrey came on the scene, because Jeyne would never have allowed Sansa to hide the bruises.

Maybe if Sansa had been braver about her bruises, Jeyne would never have lost her fingers.

She lets Jeyne sleep on - uninterrupted sleep is still a luxury for her, even years after escaping Ramsay, and Sansa does her best to encourage it wherever she can. She curls up on the windowseat instead, wrapped in the big fluffy dressing gown Granny Min gave her for her last birthday, and she tries to clear her mind.

Hard, when it’s been swimming with more memories than a single lifetime can possibly hold since yesterday night.

Now that she knows, at least as far as she can with so little time to really process everything, she just feels weighed down. All she wanted was to get away from Joff and away from Petyr so she could come to Dad’s funeral. She just wanted to get home so that she could mourn Dad, and now Joff’s ruined even that - just like he’s ruined  _ everything. _

Petyr still has her engagement ring, and her purse, and her phone. She has the little pay-as-you go phone Val gave her, which doesn’t even have a camera it’s so old, and she has whatever is in the bag Jeyne packed for her, and that’s it.

And she has her memories. So very many memories. She’s never been this old and unmarried before.

* * *

Sansa shambles downstairs with her hair in a big, ugly bun a little after seven, with Jeynie yawning and stretching behind her. Theon’s been down for twenty minutes already, helping Robb wrestle the electric juicer into submission, and Arya’s been more than happy to leave them to it while she gets the breakfast going.

“What needs doing?” Sansa asks, because that’s what Sansa does. “Where can I start?”

“Slice some bread there, Sanny,” Robb says, nodding at the beautiful crusty cobb Alys and Sig left over last night. “Let’s get everything done before Mum gets up, yeah?”

“Impossible,” Rickon says, leaning over Sansa’s shoulder to kiss her cheek and then bending down to do the same to Arya. She’ll kill him someday, for the huge deal he makes of how much smaller she is than everyone else. “Mum would never allow it.”

Arya’s been up since six, too wired and overwhelmed to sleep in, so her hair is already mostly dry. She’s got a small mountain of sausages in a warming dish in the oven, and there are eggs in ramekins for baking and more ready for frying, and there’ll be rashers and pudding rounds and fried mushrooms and onions and tomatoes and bread, and it’ll be fine.

Today will be the worst day of their lives so far, but it will be  _ fine. _

Arya will make certain of it.

Sansa’s hands are shaking pretty badly, so Edmure takes over on the bread, and Jeynie - bless her, she and Sansa were bloody awful to Arya when they were kids but she’s healed into the kindest person Arya knows - settles Sansa beside her at the table, folding napkins.

Those are for the wake. Arya hasn’t really thought that far ahead. Roslin’s done a lot of that over the phone, and Alys and Sig have been wonderful, according to Robb. Everyone’s really chipped in, which has made this whole stupid week easier to handle.

Robb cheers everyone up by calling Myrcella  _ babe _ when she arrives into the kitchen, because it makes him sound like an absolute berk. That helps, too.

By the time Mum comes down - dressed, with her hair brushed out and ready for braiding - they’ve got the breakfast ready, and even their huge kitchen table is struggling to sit everyone who’s appeared to help. Mum sits down beside Sansa, in the last chair before the gap for Bran’s wheelchair, and presses her hands flat to the table.

“Well,” she says. “We’re all set, are we?”

* * *

Arya and Sansa are braiding Mum’s hair between them in the sitting room when Ed catches Robb by the elbow and drags him outside.

“Don’t dare light up,” Ed warns him. “Now, your sister.”

“She seems better than expected,” Robb hedges, because he knows that face. That face means Ed’s about to tell him something horrible. Ricky makes the same one when he knows he’s going to get into trouble for doing something he was explicitly told not to do.

“She’s in shock, I think,” he says, which is bad enough, but then he says “because Will woke her up last night,” which is worse.

“He did  _ what-” _

“He was incredibly concussed at the time,” Edmure says testily, folding his arms over his chest just the way Arya does when she’s on the defensive. “And he was in the middle of taking a beating for Sansa’s sake - leave him alone. He meant no harm.”

“He might have done harm all the same,” Robb says, folding his own arms as much because it’s far too bloody cold to be out in just his shirtsleeves as anything else. “Hasn’t she enough to deal with, without that?”

“I’m not saying it was  _ right _ of him,” Edmure says, “but it’s the reality we’re dealing with, and I felt it best that you be prepared. Arya knows, of course, but I didn’t think she’d had a chance to tell you last night.”

“Anything else?”

“Meryn Trant isn’t going to die. Prince Oberyn shot him before he could stamp on Will’s head, but he’s going to live. No criminal charges because Prince Oberyn has diplomatic immunity and because Trant was in the course of an attempted murder, of course, but there may still be some stir about it.”

“Good gods, Edmure-”

“And Littlefinger was arrested this morning,” he adds. “Seems Joffrey repaid his information with the beating of a lifetime, which is no harm. Unlawful imprisonment of Sansa, conspiracy to commit murder, and suspected treason, if anyone can figure out the cypher he uses on his accounts.”

“Is treason still punishable by death?”

“Not as of this morning. Royal edict. Seems the new Queen is very modern.”

“Or she’s spent enough time overseas to know that we need to catch up with everyone else’s penal codes. Could be that, either.”

Robb takes a very deep breath. It’s bloody freezing, so that helps clear his head somewhat. Dad used to always say that he could think better at home than in King’s Landing, and Robb’s starting to see what he meant. There’s a clarity in the cold that’s completely absent in the hubbub of the city. 

“What about Joffrey?”

“Conspiracy to commit murder - two counts, Will and your father - and, well, he’s a deposed monarch, Robb. He’s never going to see freedom again, if he survives this.”

“You think the Targaryens will kill him?”

“I think your father was a lot more popular than you realise,” Edmure says. “People don’t like the crown very much anymore, not with all these true democracies springing up around Essos. Ned was the most republican, egalitarian monarchists I’ve ever met. More people than you think read parliamentary reports.”

“Edmure-”

“Your father,” Edmure says firmly, “was more popular than you realise. Keep that in mind.”

He sighs.

“Oh, bugger this,” he says. “Have you a smoke? I’ll blame it on you and you can blame it on me.”

* * *

Margaery brings a change of clothes and some wipes for Az, and she brings pyjamas for Will, and she brings her phone. Renly passed her number onto Myrcella, and Cella’s been keeping her up to date on goings-on in Winterfell. 

“ _ Hey,” _ Az says, looking up from her book when Marg flicks the lights.  _ “What’s up?” _

_ “Nothing much. Did you sleep at all?” _

Az shrugs. Sometimes, she’s  _ ridiculously _ like Mum.

_ “Garlan’s on his way up,” _ Marg says, shrugging the smaller bag off her shoulder so she can pass it to Az.  _ “Called him last night, once all the excitement was done. Merry insisted on coming with, so expect company.” _

Az’s smile is brighter for the promise of Meredith’s company - anyone would be, because Merry lives up to her name - and Marg can’t deny that she’s looking forward to having Garlan here. He’s furious with them for not telling him about it all sooner, of course, but Garlan’s probably the only one of the four of them with a real share of common sense. Will’s always much better off when Gar’s about, anyway.

Well. That’s when Gar’s not giving out to them for leaving him out of things, that is.

_ “Should be here by lunchtime,” _ Marg promises.  _ “Your mum about?” _

_ “Her and Granddad are on their way here,” _ Az says, which is a mixed blessing. Marg likes Tyene, and she’s fond of Prince Oberyn in small doses, but Ty still gets weirdly proprietary about Will. It’s not as though they’ve been split up for the better part of fifteen years, and Ty’s been with Allyria for ten - except that’s exactly how it is.

Still. They’ll cheer Az up no end.

Will looks like shit, with a nasal cannula and a drip and a lot of bandages and monitors and things. He’s breathing, though, slow and even, and he looks more asleep than unconscious. That’s good.

_ “Don’t you have work?” _

“ _ I have assistants,” _ Marg says, taking out the lip balm Granny texted to recommend. Will’s mouth  _ does _ look sore and flaky, and his poor nose is in bits, so maybe Granny was onto something. She usually is.  _ “And I fly out the day after tomorrow. Jade Isle.” _

Az nods, watching Marg’s hands as she does what little she can for Will.

_ “Loras texted,” _ Az says.  _ “Him and Renly are on their way, too. We should have a party.” _

_ “Maybe we will, when Gar’s finished shouting at us.” _

Az laughs, bright and loud, and Will stirs.

“Do I have my hearing aids in?” he asks, slurring his words a little - sleep and painkillers, by Marg’s guess. “Does Az?”

Aster very carefully puts Willas’ spare hearing aid, the big ugly thing that wraps over his ear, in place. He blinks his eyes open slowly, and squints at Az.

She puts his glasses on. He very thoughtfully left them on the sideboard before letting Joffrey and his gorillas into the house, so they survived the attack even though his good hearing aid didn’t.

_ “You alright?” _ he manages, because some of his fingers are swollen and a bit stiff, but Az doesn’t comment on it - a real sign that she’s worried, because she never usually misses a chance to tease him.  _ “Did you sleep?” _

“ _ Couple of hours,” _ she says.  _ “Got through a fair bit of my physics revision, though.” _

_ “Every little helps.” _

They hold hands for a minute, and Marg feels intrusive - Will used say the same, whenever her and Dad would sit close on the couch, and she never understood it until Will had Az, and then Garlan and Leo had their girls.

_ “Go get freshened up,” _ he says at last.  _ “Get something to eat - ask Aunty M for money, because I have no idea where my things are.” _

Az kisses his cheek, and she looks all over his face from behind steel-frame glasses that are almost as ugly as Will’s, and for a moment, even with the blonde hair and the Martell nose, she really is the image of him. 

Marg digs a tenner out of her bag and is rewarded with a pat on the bum, which makes Will laugh until it makes him groan in discomfort.

“Ribs?” Marg asks, offering him the lidded cup with the straw. It probably had ice chips in it at some point, but now it’s just lukewarm water. Still, it’ll do the job. “Anything else sore?”

He does her the grave, Granny-esque indignity of looking at her over his glasses. That’s a real sign that Garlan’s on the way - Will does his very best to be the nice one, when Gar’s at home and they’re all in the capital, but as soon as Gar appears Will remembers that he’s just as sarky as Marg and Loras at heart, and leaves poor Gar to be nice enough for all of them.

“Gar texted that he’s coming, and Mal called last night,” he says. “Well. Videocalled, so Az could follow along. She had a clear Seeing.”

That’s enough to give anyone pause. Mal’s Seeings are sporadic at the best of times, rapid and uneven but so common that she seems mad, if you aren’t patient with her. Margaery can remember one other time she had a clear Seeing, and that was to tell them that Will’d done his leg while visiting with Ty and her family. 

He’s always been her favourite.

“Good news?”

“Your damned wedding,” he says, grinning, because while Marg and Fred are steady enough for Fred to risk her car in Margaery’s hands, there have been visits to neither Highgarden nor White Harbour just yet. “And me in a wedding ring.”

“Well of course you get married first,” Marg says. “It isn’t fully legal for me yet.”

She sits on the side of his bed and takes his hand.

“She’s okay,” she says. “I’ve got a spy in the camp. She’s doing alright. Free to go to the funeral, and afterwards, Arya’s going to bring her to the hospital in Winterfell right after.”

“Are Mum and Dad furious?”

“Oh, absolutely incandescent,” Margaery says cheerfully. It’s such a rare treat for Mum to be mad with Will that they all savour it, just a little. The boys do the same on the extremely isolated occasions when Dad loses the rag with her, after all. “Dad’s been Awake since Robert died - of course it’s an opportunity for political advancement that wakes him, bless him - but you know Mum.”

A near-death experience for any one of the four of them wakes Mum up. It’s usually Loras, who hasn’t the sense the gods gave a cat and who gets a thrill out of putting himself in danger. Mum works out the frustrations of waking up by shouting at him, but she won’t be able to do that to Will, because he’s Will, so she’s probably shouting at Dad.

It’ll do him no harm.

“I’ll have to call her, in that case. She’ll give Dad a stroke otherwise.”

He sips some more of the water. 

“I thought about what you said,” he says. “About not knowing her this time around.”

“Oh?”

“You’re right, mostly. If I could’ve gotten out of there without waking her, I would have.”

“I hear a but, Will.”

_ “But, _ ” he says, looking a little embarrassed, and a little haunted. “I do know her well enough to read her at least a bit. The last time I saw her look like that, I found her at the top of the Peony Tower.”

Oh, gods be good. Margaery remembers that. They’d gotten Sansa away from King’s Landing and married to Willas before anyone could do a thing to stop them, that time, and she’d been crippled by the guilt of surviving while the rest of her family died one by one. Will dragged her off a high windowsill, the highest in Highgarden. 

That was a very long time ago, maybe half a dozen turns of the wheel back. Margaery doesn’t dwell on her own pasts, but she doesn’t spend as much time alone as Will does. She doesn’t live as much in her own head as Will does. 

“When she’s- when you think it won’t do more harm,” he says. “I want to apologise. She might have been better off without the past coming down on her on top of everything else.”

* * *

They waited seven days for Dad’s funeral because that’s the standard. It’s what Septists do, seven days for the seven gods, and Dad was always respectful of Septist tradition and ceremony for Mum’s sake.

And besides - the old gods don’t mind how long you wait, so long as you’re waked in front of the heart tree.

True weirwoods were almost extinct before Sansa’s great-grandmother started a reseeding programme. They’re still fairly rare, but the heart tree in Winterfell’s godswood is the oldest known in the whole of the North. Even beyond the wall, they aren’t sure if they have anything to compare because they won’t let their trees be tested.

Dad’s covered in an old-fashioned standard. It’s white, brilliant Stark white against the softer white of the snow and the dully shining white of the heart tree, with a splendid grey direwolf racing across that icy field. Usually, the head is left uncovered, but there wasn’t much of Dad’s head left-

Sansa sobs. Just once. Arya takes her hand, their fingers thick and clumsy with their gloves, and they hold on tight.

There are no formal prayers for the wake. Everyone says their own prayers, offers their own hopes and well wishes for the deceased in the privacy of their own hearts, for only the gods to hear. Later, when they get back into the house, there’ll be singing. But for now there’s only the wake, and then they’ll carry him in slings to the crypt, Robb and Ricky, Uncle Ben and Aunty Lya’s Wendel, who converted when they got married, and then- 

Well, it would have been Jory and Hollis, but they’re to be laid to rest tomorrow and the day after. They’d been part of Dad’s personal guard since he was younger than Sansa, and it’s impossible to spend that much time with anyone without becoming close to them. 

Maybe it’ll be the Greatjon. Him and maybe Bartie Glover. 

Arya holds on tight. Sansa holds on tighter. To Sansa’s right, Robb’s got Mum under his arm, both of them wet-faced and silent. To Arya’s left, Bran’s got his arm up around Ricky’s waist, both of them trying to be brave. 

Granny’s standing directly across from Sansa - Edmure and Bryn are facing Mum and Robb, and Roslin and the kids are on Granny’s other side - and she gives a thumbs up. Sansa’s barely had a chance to see Mum since she arrived home, never mind any of their visitors, and she’d very much like to curl up and have Granny Min sing to her for twenty minutes.

The bell on the sept rings one o’clock. That means their hour is done, and the men step forward - Robb and Ricky, Ben and Wen, and the Smalljon and Harry Karstark. 

The part of Sansa that’s come to terms with all her other memories thinks  _ Yes, that’s about right. _ Smalljon catches her eye and gives her a small, tight smile, and she nods in response. 

The bier parts. Platform and flowers and banner remain behind, and Dad, wrapped in the old-fashioned Stark standard, sways gently in the black silk slings. 

Mum leads the crowd that follows after, and Sansa walks with her. Arya and Bran follow close behind, with Aunty Lya and Willam and then all the Tullys, and then the lords of the North in somber, black-sashed procession.

They opened the castle gates for this. That’s the standard custom for a ducal funeral, to let the town in, with a neat path cut through any gathered crowd from godswood gate to crypt. Sansa has seen photos of her grandfather’s funeral, but that was nothing compared to this. 

“Oh,  _ Ned _ ,” Mum says, her voice low and thick with tears. “He would never have believed this.”

The yard is jammed. There are people standing on the curtain wall, and on the steps, and pouring out the gates onto the top of Castle Street. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen so many people gathered together in Winterfell, except at Fell matches. 

“They loved him, too,” she says, tugging Mum just a little closer. “They saw the good in him, even if he never saw it himself.”

* * *

“So let me get this straight,” Garlan says, sitting on the foot of Will’s hospital bed. He’s got his back to where Az and Merry are hanging out, so he can’t see Az teaching eight-year-old Merry curse words in sign. Renly’s got two good nieces and a good nephew (well, sort of), but he’s also got a Joffrey - Loras, though, has Aster, who’s been cooler than Willas since she was three, and he’s got Merry and Marry, who are somehow even sweeter than Gar and Leo, and MJ, six months old and already the image of his grandfather. 

Garlan and Leonette make the most insanely cherubic kids. It’d be sickening, if they weren’t adorable. 

Garlan, though, does not look even slightly cherubic. He looks pissed off. 

“You thought that you’d just… get through this without any trouble?” he asks, somehow managing to cow even Willas into abject foolishness. Loras and Marg look petulant, with their arms folded and their chins tucked against their chests, but Will’s going for pathetic, and by the gods he looks every inch of it. The black eye is really helping. “Whatever about Will, I expect better of the two of you! You’re usually so sensible, both of you!”

Renly gives the girls the nod, and the three of them sneak away to the canteen while the Tyrells bicker. Merry chatters away merrily, signing at least half of what she’s saying for Az’s sake, and then she goes into rapt silence when presented with the display fridge full of cakes.

Truly Loras’ niece.

_ “Alright?” _ he asks Az, taking advantage of Merry’s distraction. 

Az shrugs. Bad sign. Renly is her godfather, and probably knows her better than any adult outside her parents and Lyria. He used to babysit her more than anyone else did because it gave him an excuse to hang out with Loras, in the six months when Loras did his shoulder and was at home in Highgarden recovering, after he lost what would have been his fourth Qohorik Open on the trot.

He got a husband out of all that. He also got the trust of the single most suspicious young woman in the world. Aster’s got good reason to be suspicious of people, between the eternally cycling machinations of the Tyrells and Martells and the ever-changing roster of enemies outside her two families. She’d have good reason to be suspicious even if she didn’t  _ know,  _ her whole little life. 

_ “Talk to me, ladybug,” _ Renly says, knocking his ankle against hers.  _ “It goes no further, you know that.” _

Merry’s got her nose pressed flat against the glass now, so they’ve got another couple of minutes.

_ “He always gets hurt,”  _ she says.  _ “Every single time, he won’t try anything else. It’s always Sansa or bust, and he gets hurt every time.” _

Not untrue. Not entirely fair, either.

_ “It’s different for some of us, Az,”  _ Renly says, because that’s the bare bones of it. Sometimes, you don’t have a choice. Renly’s born with a greenish blotch on his back every time, and Loras has a tracing of faded black lines on his flank. Renly  _ does _ try. He knows that Edmure does, too, and Arianne, and all of them who have marks - but it never works. He always circles back around to Loras, and Edmure to Roslin and Arianne to Daemon. Some things are inevitable. 

_ “I wish he could be happy,”  _ Az says.  _ “And safe. And- you get it, Renly.” _

_ “I do. But you know how he is.” _

She worms herself in under his arm, wrapping her arms tight around his waist. He lets her hold on until Merry’s done, and then they have to choose cakes. Merry makes Aster show her how to fingerspell each cake, and then she tries to order for them in sign - that  _ always _ goes well.

Merry eats all three cakes. Az talks a little more while Merry covers her entire face in cream.

_ “It’s different for you and Loras,” _ she says.  _ “You’re both Awake! You both know!” _

_ “Roslin doesn’t. Most of us don’t. I thought you liked Sansa, Az.” _

_ “I do! I do, Renly. I just wish loving her didn’t hurt Dad so much.” _

* * *

“We need to leave for the hospital,” Arya says, squeezing Ricky’s shoulders - only possible because he’s having a bit of a sit down. Mum relented and let her switch from her high grey shoes to her boots, and she’s bundled up for travelling - the hospital isn’t far, but the roads are in shit condition with last night’s snow and half the streets are blocked off for the funeral. “You coming along?”

“Nah,” he says. “Granny’s in funny old humour, so I’ll stay to keep her distracted.”

Bran’s in the door of the music room, looking thoughtful, and when he goes in, Arya and Ricky follow. Robb’s not far behind - his obnoxiously shiny boots tap on the floors even more than Mum’s heels - but they all come up short.

Dad had the piano adapted for Bran, so he could play without pedals, and it would have pride of place in the music room if not for Sansa’s harp.

Dad always loved listening to Sansa play the harp.

Bran arranges himself to play accompaniment, as he has since he learned his first scales, but Sansa doesn’t need any help on the melancholy numbers. She never has. That’s never made Arya sad before, but it does now.

“Oh,” Granny says, right behind Arya, with Mum. “She played this for your father’s funeral, Cat, do you remember?”

Mum nods, reaching frantically for Arya’s hand. She looks like she might be sick. Arya can’t blame her.  _ The King’s Lament _ was written for Torrhen Stark, all those many years ago, and Sansa and Bran adapted it for modern classical harp and piano for the three hundredth anniversary of the Conquest. Sansa adapted it again, with Jeynie’s help, for solo harp for Pop’s funeral the year before last. 

It sounds a little different today. Maybe because it’s not a lament for Northern independence or the lost crown of the Stark Kings of Winter. Maybe because it’s not grieving for Pop, who was old and sick and suffering when finally the Crone reached out her hand and guided him to the Stranger’s side. 

Probably because Sansa’s staring at the floor and crying harder than any of them. She doesn’t stop, though. She doesn’t stop when Mum sobs, loud and hard, and stamps away. She doesn’t stop when Granny says “Oh,  _ Cat,” _ and goes after Mum. She doesn’t stop when Bran does, or when Jeynie and Cley Cerwyn and Wylla Manderly, Sansa’s best friends from before she went to Duskendale and got scared of everything, come in and hold onto one another. She doesn’t stop, even when Robb clicks away and clicks back to wrap her up in a coat - Dad’s coat, his long black coat that Mum had made for him so it hung lower than the edge of his robes for ceremonies on cold days, and Sansa in her high shoes is the only person other than Rickon who’s tall enough to wear it and her good coat is still in King’s Landing, they found that out this morning so she’s been wearing Dad’s coat all day-

She doesn’t miss a single note.

* * *

“Imagine remembering all the other times you’ve loved Leo, Gar,” Willas says. It’s just the two of them - the girls are curled up asleep on the big, soft armchair, Merry in Azzie’s lap, but they’re both snoring so he isn’t afraid of being caught out. “Imagine knowing that all those times before, you were happy together. Now imagine knowing that, having that sitting inside you, and knowing that Leo had no idea.”

“This is different, Will,” Garlan says, with that firm, unwavering gentleness that he inherited from Mum. “She remembers it all, but the way she woke up, Will… Don’t. Don’t push her.”

“Everyone keeps saying that,” he says. “Az told me not to get weird. So did M, for that matter. Now it’s you. I’m not a monster, Gar. I wouldn't- I have  _ never-” _

“I know,” Garlan assures him. Garlan’s holding tight to his hand, the one that isn’t a mess of swollen knuckles. That’s the only thing keeping him from crying. “But Will, maybe you need to rethink things. Maybe you need to-”

“I’ve already rethought a lot of things. I start teaching in September, did you know that? And Az is coming to live with me. Full time. I have a life, Gar. I don’t just sit around pining for Sansa.”

“But she’s always been the endgame,” Gar says. “Life with her has always been the point for you. I can see that, now I’m Awake.”

“Maybe somewhat,” Will admits. “The house, of course. But I’ve been a father since I was eighteen, Gar.  _ Aster _ is the point. Why else would I sink so much money into a house on the million mile, if not to tempt her into coming to live with me? I-  _ Aster _ is what matters most, Gar. Not some hypothetical family that I might have with Sansa. Fuck, Gar, until this week I never-”

He takes a deep breath.

“I don’t care about being alone,” he says. “I’m not alone - I’ve got Az, and I’m not without friends. Even if I was, M and Loras never leave me alone for a moment, do they?”

“Will.”

“I lost my head this week,” he says. “I know that, but it just- it piles on. Years and years of everything proceeding as normal, and then everything happens in a week.”

“You’re in love with her, though.”

“Not yet,” Will says. “I could be, if she gives me a chance. But I’m not. Ty and I talked about it already, so I’ll tell you what I told her. If what’s best for Sansa is that she go home, then I want her to go home.”

“Even now? Even knowing she’s Awake? I’ve never known you to let her go before.”

He’s chased her in the past, of course he has, but that was in times when a courtship by pursuit was expected. He’d never dare such a thing now, when the best thing he can offer Sansa is not the peace of Highgarden’s cloisters and groves, but rather the chance to speak to someone who can  _ help  _ her. 

She’s never had a chance to heal unfettered before. If he has ever loved her, then he must give her that chance, until or unless she chooses to come to him. 

“Even now,” he says. “I’ve never hurt her before, Gar. I’m not going to start now.”

* * *

Robb eventually finds Jon in the godswood.

“Good of you to stay out of the way,” he says, as conversationally as he can manage. “Mum would’ve killed you if you’d tried to line up in the procession. She still might, if she comes across you.”

“You know I would never let Sansa be hurt,” Jon says. “Nor any of you.”

He has just enough sense not to shove Jon back into the heart tree. No need to be profane when exacting justice. The bark of the sentinel pine cracks behind Jon’s back, and he squirms against the press of Robb’s forearm to his throat.

“You knew,” he says, still carefully neutral. “You knew exactly where my sister was, and you knew that she was not safe. You knew that she’d been taken by the man who has done her more harm than anyone else ever has, and you  _ left  _ her there. I want to know why.”

“She was safe,” Jon says. “We had people-”

“Baelish would have raped her if she hadn’t brained him with a fucking lamp, but we’re supposed to be  _ fine _ with that because what? Mya Stone and  _ the Mad fucking Mouse _ were keeping an eye on her? What use were they when Baelish was-”

“We would never have allowed-”

“And then Val tells me,” Robb says, “Val! Your brilliant, beautiful wife, who I like a great deal more than I like  _ you,  _ Val tells me that you and your sister were planning on seeing Sansa married off to your  _ brother?” _

If it wouldn’t cause a diplomatic incident, Robb would kill Jon right now. He’s spent lifetimes defending Jon from Mum’s suspicion and the disdain of highborn twits who didn’t like his bastard name. Always,  _ always _ , in every lifetime, Robb has done his best to protect Jon from everything that might have come his way for being illegitimate, for being a threat to Robb’s own position when that was something to worry about.

Had Robb thought Jon was capable of being a threat to the girls? Or to Bran and Ricky? He would have drowned him in the hot springs when they were kids.

“When Sansa’s ready,” he says. “When she’s  _ healed _ , after everything she’s gone through - don’t speak,” he says firmly, when Jon opens his mouth. “Don’t fucking dare speak. When Sansa’s gotten to a point where she can see past everything she’s endured, made worse by Baelish having her, you’ll have a chance to apologise to her. It had better be the most sincere apology the world has ever seen.”

Arya clears her throat from the other side of the heart tree clearing. She’s back in her high grey shoes, the ones she hates that Sansa bought for her, and Robb can guess why.

“My turn?” she asks, and Robb steps away. Jon is heaving for breath when Arya takes him by the shoulders, shoves him down a little, and drives her knee into his dick.

He hits the floor. Good.

“If you  _ ever _ do something this stupid again,” she says, “I’ll cut it off. Understood?”

* * *

Jeyne brought Cley and Wylla with her, when she came to relieve Arya from Sansawatch, and to do that, since all of them are useless and refuse to drive in the snow without heavy winter tyres, she enlisted Smalljon.

Jeyne and Cley and Wylla won’t tell her a damn thing, but Sansa knows how quickly things turn over during a coup. Now that she has all her memories, she’s seen a dozen or more - they’re always fast, and they’re usually bloody. 

“Not very bloody, actually,” Smalljon says, when he’s wrapped his hand firm over Wylla’s mouth to stop her telling him to shut up. Apparently, they started going out the year before last, but Sansa’s been so busy pretending that no one knew what Joff was doing to her to notice. 

Because of course everyone knew that Joff was abusing her. They would have helped her, if she hadn’t been too afraid to ask.

“Robert Baratheon and your father,” Smalljon says. “Jon Arryn too, I suppose, since his murder was part of Baelish’s plan to destabilise the country. Beyond that, I have to give it to the Targaryens - they did everything in their power to keep the body count to a minimum. No one put up much of a fight beyond the Lannister loyalists, but the Targaryens had a merc army. The aunt seems to be  _ quite _ the little diplomat.”

Daenerys. Yes. Sansa remembers her now. Strange that she’s so instrumental to Targaryen restoration even now, when the world is so very different.

“The Lannisters are all in custody,” Jeyne says, surprising Sansa. Jeyne more than anyone has wanted to keep her out of the loop, just until she gets her feet under her. “And some of the papers are already breaking the, the  _ other _ news online ahead of the morning editions.”

“What other news?”

“That the Kingslayer and sweet Cersei have been having an affair that’s illegal twice over,” Wylla says, pulling Smalljon’s arm down. “Imagine being Queen and not only being stupid enough to have an affair in the first place, which you know automatically makes your children illegitimate if it’s discovered, but being so stupid that you have an affair with your  _ brother.  _ Revolting.”

Poor Tommy. Poor Cella. Poor Joff, too, and Sansa hates that she pities him. She should want him dead. She should want Petyr dead. It’s weak of her to want otherwise. 

“So all in all,” Cley says, wrapping a thick-knit blanket around Sansa’s shoulders, “it seems as though justice might just be done, San.”

It seems far too soon to make that call, but- maybe. Maybe this is the time they get justice for Dad without losing themselves to do it.

“Enough of that for the evening, though,” Jeyne says. “I’ve brought Monopoly-”

“I thought you wanted to keep her stress levels  _ down-” _

“Come  _ on _ Jeyne, you know that’s carnage-”

“I call the thimble,” Sansa says. “And I get a headstart, because I’m a trauma patient.”

“How’s  _ that  _ fair-”

“Don’t play the martyr, San-”

* * *

“Whole world is changed now,” Alla says, wrapping her skinny arms around Arya’s waist from behind. “How are we feeling about that?”

“Just thrilled,” Arya says. Truth be told, she has no idea how she feels. Grieving for Dad, relieved to have Sansa back but worried about her recovery, furious with Jon, pleasantly surprised by how completely Robb’s managed to avoid becoming a berk under the weight of responsibility-

“It’s alright to be pissed,” Alla says quietly. “But just now, I think we might be better served to  _ get  _ pissed, what do you say?”

“Barbrey’s already on at me to get back to training,” Arya admits. “I probably shouldn’t.”

“If Barbrey Ryswell is so mean-spirited that she can’t give you a full week-”

“I’m probably a better rider when I’m hungover anyways,” Arya says, grinning. Alla’s got the most insufferable knack for putting her in a good mood. “Come on. Granny’s been asking for a good sit down with you for months now.”

It feels like tempting fate to even think it, but this feels as close to normal as possible, without Dad.

**DAY FIVE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-TWO **

Sansa’s gown and hood feel heavy in the heat, but she can tolerate that for a few hours. It’s worth it, because once this is over, she has to start thinking about finding a job.

Well, unless she does a post-doc. She might do a post-doc. She’s applied for a post-doc in Oldtown, and one here in UCKL, and one in Braavos, but  _ don’t tell Mum. _

“Doctor Stark,” Edmure says, with Coren on his shoulders and Bethy wrapped around his leg. They’re all in sashes, but no robes, because the conferral of doctoral degrees from the national universities is a royal duty - this is the Queen’s first such occasion. 

Sansa still doesn’t like Rhaenys Targaryen, but at least she seems to be doing a reasonable job. Robb is full of extremely reluctant praise for her.

“Can I have robes like yours, Sansa?” Bethy asks, which makes Roslin laugh.

“You’ll need to work a great deal harder at school for  _ that,  _ my girl,” she says, pulling Bethy off Edmure and lifting her up onto her hip. “Say congratulations to Sansa.”

“I’ve had enough congratulations for a lifetime today,” Sansa says, accepting what’s probably a glittery kiss on the cheek from Bethy. “All I’ve done-”

“Is work very hard and achieve something wonderful,” Mum cuts in. “Hello Roslin, baby Bethy-”

Mum gets a glittery kiss, too.

“But don’t you let me hear you playing this down, Sansa Stark,” she warns. “You’ve done a wonderful thing, and I know the others would say the same if they were here.”

Arya’s riding in the Rhoynar Cup today, so she’s away off in Dorne. Bran’s got classes of his own, and an OT appointment he can’t afford to miss. Ricky’s got class too, and Robb’s opening the winter session of the lordsmeet in Winterfell. All the Tullys are here except Aunty Lysa, who’s still refusing to believe that her dear, darling Petyr could  _ possibly  _ have done anything like Sansa’s accusing him of - not that her ardent defence stopped Petyr from ratting Lysa out for her part in Uncle Jon’s murder.

Poor Robin. He knew, but it’s one thing to  _ know _ that your mother was party to your father’s murder, and another altogether to have it confirmed. 

Robin’s here somewhere, though, probably talking with the Queen - he’s close to Trystane Martell, and that seems to have given him a hell of an in with the royal family. He keeps Sansa updated on how very sorry Jon is, which has been a welcome distraction when the writing of her thesis made her want to scream. 

“Your dad would be so proud, sweetheart,” Mum says, slipping her arm around Sansa’s waist. “So proud.”

Sansa should probably cry. Eighteen months ago, she would have, but now, she smiles.

She smiles so much more now than she used to.

* * *

Willas is still getting used to being on sabbatical - he was encouraged to take some time off last year, for “the good of his health,” and only barely convinced the university to let him finish out the year for the sake of his students. So here he is, on a sunny October morning, waiting for Az to come home from her half-day of lectures and pretending to work on an article about pre-Unification art as nation-building propaganda. 

He’s supposed to be writing a book, of course. That’s what academics do when they’re on sabbatical, isn’t it?

Aster’s encouraged him to try and find some hobbies, beyond reading books about art and sneaking out to the stables in Tumbleton - although she does approve of the stables, because him and Gar have been working with the special school in the town to train up the gentlest horses on Highgarden’s books as therapy animals. But she’s convinced him to take up cooking, and they go cycling together whenever his knee isn’t acting up.

Having her come to live with him has been ever better than he’d dared hope.

She’s an unrelenting critic of his cooking, so he’s going with something tried and tested today - warm chicken salad, just spicy enough to strike a balance between what he can handle and what she likes-

His phone buzzes in his pocket, which is strange. Pretty much anyone who might be calling him should be at work, or at least not available to call. Maybe it’s Mum - she has a fundraising thing this afternoon, so she’s probably checking in before that to make sure him and Az are still coming down to Highgarden for dinner at the weekend.

Oh. It’s Marg. 

“‘Lo, M,” he says, tucking his phone between his ear and his shoulder so he can keep on slicing peppers. “What can I do for you, little sister?”

_ “So Sansa’s graduated this morning,”  _ she says.  _ “And Doctor Stark, D.Phil, wants to know if Doctor Tyrell, D.Litt, would be available for dinner some evening next week.” _

He goes so stupid for a second that his phone almost falls into the sink.

“Give her my number, you heathen!” he says, smiling like an idiot while Marg laughs at him. “Has she applied for any post-docs? What’s her doctorate  _ in,  _ Marg? I’m not sure how I can help-”

_ “Don’t be weird, Will.” _

“Don’t you be weird. I’m the most overqualified academic any of us are ever going to meet, except Oberyn and Malora, so of  _ course  _ she wants to talk to me. Is she thinking of staying in King’s Landing?”

_ “You’re being extremely weird. I hope you know that.” _

“I just want to help, M,” he says. “Even if nothing ever happens between us romantically, I will  _ always  _ want what’s best for Sansa. How’s Wynafryd, if we want to talk about being weird? Do Mum and Dad know you’re engaged, M?”

_ “Bastard. Tell Az I love her.” _

She hangs up. He keeps smiling like a fool.

So. Sansa’s obviously doing well. There’s nowhere in the North that does a post-doc in either history or linguistics, barring the very niche School of Northern Studies in UCWH. Oberyn’s Ellaria was looking for research fellows for something to do with that very complicated study she was doing on the shared roots of the near-extinct Rhoynar language, the name of which Willas can’t pronounce without sounding like the uncultured idiot he is, and Andalish, but that might not be her speed. Oh! Pops mentioned something about the Citadel’s history department expanding, maybe that’s it?

He’s being weird. He knows that, but maybe it’s best to get it out of his system now, when Sansa is very much not in the room. He really does mean it when he tells Marg that he has no creepy, lecherous intentions toward Sansa, but it would be nice to have her at least somewhat in his life.

At least her mother doesn’t loathe him this time around. That’s a good start.

He can’t stop smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who don't follow me on tumblr (@cosmonauthill!), this is late because I was in a serious car accident on Tuesday morning which resulted in my having surgery on my right wrist on Wedesday morning - I had to have a plate inserted because of the placement and severity of the break.
> 
> So be kind about typos okay :L
> 
> Thanks as always to L, Eli, May, Brad, Kate, Sarah, Never, and my sister for their help on this! And thank you to everyone who read, subbed, bookmarked, left kudos, or commented on this!
> 
> I usually finish on a longer note but given my dominant hand is two days post-op in a cast...

**Author's Note:**

> So a rewrite! Expect one chapter a week, right up until the week before Christmas. The first three are done and I'm working on the other four for Nano ;)
> 
> Tags will be updated as I post!
> 
> Title from Terry Pratchett's _Going Postal_, specifically “Welcome to fear, said Moist to himself. It's hope, turned inside out. You know it can't go wrong, you're sure it can't go wrong...But it might.”


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